


Truth or Dare

by ICanStopAnytime



Series: Playing Games [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caryl, F/M, Freindship, Humor, Prison, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanStopAnytime/pseuds/ICanStopAnytime
Summary: On a run for formula, Carol and Daryl take refuge in a cabin, and Daryl is forced to play a get-to-know-you game.





	1. A Surprise in Daryl's Wallet

Carol swung open the chain link fence of the prison so Daryl could roar in on his motorcycle. He looked so relaxed on that iron horse. Michonne sat behind him, her arms wrapped casually around his waist, her knees against his hips. For a brief moment, Carol envied her.

The bike vroomed to a sudden stop, purred, and sputtered off. With booted heel, Daryl kicked out his stand and let the bike fall to a prop on its side. Michonne slid off from behind him, and then he followed.

"Any luck finding the Governor?" Carol asked.

"Trail's gone cold," Daryl told her.

"I want to keep looking," Michonne said. "Regroup for a couple of days, then head out again."

Daryl shook his head. "I'm tellin' ya, ain't no point."

"Fine. I'll go by myself." Michonne strutted away.

"Don't be like that," Daryl called after her.

She turned slowly. "He's planning his revenge, and he has to be stopped."

"Who knows if he's even alive," Daryl said.

"I'm going back out tomorrow. If you're done, you're done, but I'm going back out."

Daryl shifted on his feet. "When will you be back?"

Michonne shrugged in that can't-be-bothered way of hers. "When I get back. A few days. A week. Two weeks. I don't know." She turned and walked away.

Daryl watched her leave and sighed. "Go if I thought there was any real chance of finding him."

"I know you would," Carol said.

"Wish she wasn't pissed off at me 'bout it."

"She'll get it over it," Carol assured him.

Zach walked by them on his way out to work in the cropland and pointed a finger at Daryl as he passed. "High school football coach," he said. "I bet you could yell real good. Really put the fear of God into those players."

"Nah."

"I'm almost there," Zach insisted as he walked away, shaking his head.

"Is he still trying to guess what you did for a living?" Carol asked him.

Daryl nodded.

"Listen," Carol told him, "I'm sorry to make you turn around and go back out right away, but after you have some lunch, we need to go find some more formula for Judith. We're running low again."

"Ya comin' with?"

"I'm bored."

"A'right." He sniffed the air. "What ya got cookin' for lunch?"

"Nothing you can smell from here. But you'll like it, I promise."

Daryl did like it. He murmured and hummed while he ate, and then he licked every one of his fingers clean. Carol didn't know why, but she couldn't help but watch him whenever he did that. It was a disgusting, unmannered habit, but it sent a little shiver through her. She found her mind drifting, against her will, to thoughts of what it might feel like if it was some part of  _her_  he was licking and sucking instead.

After lunch, Carol crammed a change of clothes, a hammer, nails, a first aid kid, and some snacks into her backpack. They might return from their run this evening, but you never knew where or why you might end up having to spend the night.

Daryl met her near the vehicles. As they neared his motorcycle, she found herself looking forward to slipping her arms around him, spreading her legs behind him, and pressing them to his as they rode. It was a strange thought for her. Carol hadn't experienced physical feeling for a real-life man in years. She'd shut that part of herself off at some point during her marriage to Ed. But now she might feel a genuine urge to touch, or a titillating tingling, several times a day. This sexual reawakening was vaguely bothersome, especially in the midst of an apocalypse when her mind needed to be focused on survival, but she couldn't control it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Clamping down on it would be like crushing beneath her heel a single flower that had begun to bloom in a dark and barren field. Daryl was not the only man around whom she felt these urges, but he was the one who inspired them most often.

Carol thought maybe Daryl loved her, but in the way a man loved his big sister or his best friend. She didn't think Daryl wanted to take her to bed.  _Michonne_ , maybe, but not her. And, who knew, maybe he  _had_  taken Michonne to bed already, one of those many nights they were alone together, following the Governor's trail. Maybe something had happened between them out there, and maybe that was why Michonne was really pissed off at his reluctance to keep looking with her.

"Nah," Daryl said, and for a startling second she thought he'd read her thoughts. But he was just following her gaze as she looked at his bike. "Better take one of the cars, case'n we find a big haul of shit."

Carol knew he was right, but it was with a heavy step that she turned and walked toward the sedan. "I kind of wanted to feel the wind in my hair."

"What hair?" he asked.

"Thanks a lot."

"Ain't an insult. Just meant it's short is all." He opened the passenger's side of the car and just held it open, like he wasn't getting in.

It took Carol a moment to realize he was holding it for her. "Well aren't you a gentleman," she said as she slid inside.

"Told you it weren't an insult!" He shut the door with a clang.

When he got in the driver side, she said, "I meant holding the door open for me. Although I'm fully capable of doing it for myself."

"Ya are? Never would have guessed by the way you shot that three inch group last week." He shut his door and cranked the engine. "I like yer hair. Like the color."

"Really? It doesn't make me look old?"

"Pffft..." The brownish-red sedan crunched over the gravel as he began driving. "Ya ain't old."

"I'm not as young as Michonne."

He shot her a puzzled look as Carl Grimes shut the fence behind them. "How old are ya?"

"How old do you think I am?" Carol asked.

"Ain't dumb enough to play  _that_  game."

"How old are  _you_?" asked Carol as she checked her rifle to make sure it was cocked and loaded and ready to go should they run into a herd of walkers or any unfriendly people.

"Dunno. Don't keep track. Ain't exactly ever had anyone bake me a birthday cake."

"Never?" His revelation truck her as terribly sad.

"Nah. Never." He gunned the engine and swerved around a walker before hitting the paved road and slowing down again.

"Well, when's your birthday? I'll make you a cake. Or something. Whatever I can manage to put together with what we have."

"In that case, it's whenever we get back from this run."

She chuckled. "When is it really?"

"Dunno."

"Don't know!" she said. "What do you mean, you don't know?" She reached right into his back pants pocket and pulled out his wallet.

"What do ya think yer doin'?"

"Looking for your driver's licenses." Carol flipped open the black leather wallet

"Ain't got one. Hell I need it for? Think Sheriff Grimes is gonna write me a ticket? Give it back!" He grabbed for the wallet, but she pulled it away, laughing.

She didn't find a driver's license, but she found a condom. When she held up the foil package, he turned a shade of red she did not think it was possible for a human being to turn. She laughed, but then she felt suddenly sick to her stomach and shoved the condom back in his wallet. Had that been for Michonne? Why only  _one_? Was it because he had no real hopes of getting laid, or because he'd used up several already?

As she began to close the wallet, a loose photograph fluttered out and landed between her feet. Carol looked down at the young, beautiful, blonde woman with blue-gray eyes. When she recovered the photo, Carol observed that the young woman wore a white cowgirl hat, a pink, spaghetti string tank top, and cut-off blue jeans. "Who is it?"

The girl seemed too young for him, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, but if the photo had been taken a few years ago, and if Daryl liked women who were a few years younger, it was possible this woman had once been his girlfriend. Possible - and yet, the very idea that Daryl might have had a girlfriend before the Outbreak - someone he'd lost to the disease - maybe even someone he'd been forced to put down - had never occurred to her before this moment.

"Yer nosy as hell, ya know that!"

"Sorry," she apologized, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with guilt and wishing she hadn't teasingly grabbed that wallet. She hadn't really expected to find anything in it but his license and maybe some scraps of paper with a list for the supply run. After sliding the photograph back inside, she closed up the wallet and handed it back to him. The black leather was well worn and warm to the touch. The wallet just  _felt_ like it belonged to Daryl.

Daryl grabbed it, shoved it in his back pocket, and glared at her. Carol wished she could take it all back, make friends again. She  _needed_  his friendship. Sometimes it felt like his friendship was all she had in this world. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I was just teasing, and I took it too far. I really didn't mean to upset you."

His jaw set tightly, Daryl stared out the windshield. He'd driven silently for several minutes when he said, "Ain't mad at ya. 'S just...ya can really stick in my craw sometimes, ya know?"

"I know," Carol said softly, and she turned and looked out the passenger's side window.

"Ain't personal," he said. "Everyone does. You less'n most."

"Really? Sometimes I think I  _stick in your craw_  more than most."

"Nah. Ya just hang 'round me more than most. Hell, most people don't even talk to me less'n they  _have_  to. Ya know, for business reasons."

She smiled. "Well, they're really missing out, because you can be fun to talk to."

"Pffft."

"I  _like_  talking to you."

If he hadn't smiled, and then bit down on his bottom lip to hide that smile, she wouldn't know her words had pleased him.

"Is that a strip mall down that road?" she asked.

Daryl leaned forward, peered through the windshield, and made a sharp left.

[*]

 

A walker stumbled down over the curb that led to the parking lot and lurched toward them. "Let me get it," Carol insisted. "I need the practice."

"Be my guest," Daryl muttered, though he didn't lower his crossbow just yet.

Carol left her rifle hanging on her shoulder, unsheathed her knife, took two steps forward, and drove the blade into the approaching walker's forehead. She twisted and then yanked the knife back out. The creature crumpled to the ground. Daryl lowered his crossbow as Carol wiped her knife on a discolored white cloth she kept in her coat pocket. He nodded toward the Rite Aid. "Drug store's our best bet." There wasn't much else worth investigating at the tiny strip mall: a going-out-of-business Hallmark, a Tae Kwon Do school, a shipping and supply store, and a check cashing place.

They crawled through the smashed, front window of the Rite Aid, over the bricks that had been thrown by looters. Several dead walkers lay on the ground, and a few of the shelves had been toppled over. The pharmacy was completely cleaned out, and there wasn't much left in the rest of the store either: magazines, laundry detergent, and misshapen candles that had clearly melted last summer and re-solidified in the winter. No food and no formula. On the way out, Carol grabbed a Georgia street map from a toppled stand and a Yellow Pages directory from a stack on the front counter.

As Daryl started the car, she began to flip through the phone book. "Never thought I'd use one of these again after we got Internet." She tried to picture Daryl sending an e-mail and laughed.

"'S so funny?" he asked as he pulled the sedan out of the parking lot, the front tire crunching over the hand of a fallen walker.

"Did you have an e-mail account? Before all this?"

"Sure. SexyDaryl43 at A-O-L dot com."

Carol laughed. "I'm guessing you didn't even have a computer. Or a cell phone." His silence confirmed her assumption. She turned to the G's to locate the nearest grocery store. "For years, Ed wouldn't get the Internet. When he finally did, he put tracking software on the computer so he could monitor all my activity."

Daryl's eyes flashed with anger, as they usually did when she mentioned Ed. "Look for daycare centers," he told her. "'S where I found formula last time. Ain't as likely to have been picked over."

She flipped back to the D's. Using the directory and the map, Carol navigated him to a daycare center. The door was locked, so they busted a window with a nearby rock. Daryl yanked the red rag from his back pocket, wrapped it around his hand to protect the skin, and brushed the glass away. He crawled through first and then helped Carol through. Her hand slid comfortably into his as she stepped down and in. Glass crunched beneath her boots as she hit the floor.

They could hear the sound of scurrying behind closed doors, and the gnashing of hungry walkers, as they walked cautiously down the hall, gun and crossbow readied. Carol shined the flashlight attached to her scope in the darkened interior hall, which had no windows. The beam of light caressed innocent drawings of smiling stick figure families as the pair made their way toward a door marked "0-8 months."

Hungry groaning from a connecting hallway caused them to whirl before they reached the room. Coming toward them was a lurching classroom full of walker children, probably from some after-school program. The changed children weren't all that much younger than her own Sophia. The rifle trembled in her hand. A terrible sob tore its way up from her gut and poured out of her mouth. She couldn't shoot.

With a whiz and a thunk, an arrow from Daryl's crossbow lodged in the head of the nearest walker. He left his arrow behind, wrapped an arm around Carol's waist, and dragged her toward the front door. With the walkers on their heels, he unlocked it and pushed her out into the startling daylight. She was still blinking against the blinding light when Daryl turned and frantically slammed the door shut. The blue door shuddered in its frame as the walkers piled against it inside. 

"We'll look somewheres else," he said as he guided her back to the car with the palm of his hand pressed against the small of her back.

Carol slid into the passenger's seat and rested the rifle upright between her knees as memories of Sophia continued to overwhelm her. She was having trouble breathing when Daryl started the car. The door of the daycare broke open beneath the weight of the herd of walker children. The grasping creatures tumbled to the ground. The last of the undead children stumbled over the clawing herd and staggered toward the car.

" _Breathe_ , woman!" Daryl ordered as he tore out of the parking lot.

Eventually, Carol did, in raspy breaths that gradually returned to normal. "Sorry," she apologized when she had calmed herself. "Guess I'm still the weakling of the crew."

"Ain't nothin' weak 'bout ya," he assured her. "They got to me, too. All them damn kids."

They drove for several minutes without speaking. Daryl kept glancing at her, his blue eyes graying with concern. After a few miles, he stopped to siphon off some gas from a few abandoned cars, while Carol remained in the passenger's seat, her head pressed against the window, trying not to remember and trying not to cry. At last, she shook off the feeling, threw open the car door, and went to help him. They filled the tank of the sedan and one red, five-gallon container.

They tried a grocery store next, killing six walkers as they roamed the aisles, but they found nothing worth taking except three cans of brussel sprouts. Daryl debated the value of bothering with those.

"But I want to make you a brussel sprout pie for your birthday," Carol teased him.

"Well, if _anyone_ could make 'em edible, guess it's you." As they returned to the car, he grumbled, "All the stores been cleaned out by now."

"We should look at houses," she suggested.

They drove until they found a suburban neighborhood that did not appear to be too overrun. They chose to look in houses with young children's toys out front, as they were more likely to have formula. There were only a few walkers roaming the streets, but in each house they encountered two or three. Daryl's arrows were growing black with blood, and Carol's knife was wet with it, but they kept going.

Carol was finding she no longer flinched when she stabbed a walker, that, for her, killing walkers was becoming as routine and unremarkable as a diabetic giving himself injections. Needle in, needle out, task completed. She was proud of herself, but she was also just a little bit frightened by herself.

Daryl looked at the walker she had just killed in the kitchen of one side of a duplex. "Yer gettin' really good at this."

Carol stepped over the dead body to open the pantry. It was crawling with sugar ants, hundreds of them, swarming around, over, and in a box of opened cereal and a bag of sugar. The pantry was otherwise bare, except for a single can of beets, which she grabbed. "They always leave the beets for last," she said. "I don't know why. I love beets. But I liked to grow them fresh."

Daryl was on his haunches and rummaging through a lower cupboard across from the stove. Carol slipped the beets into her backpack. "You aren't going to find anything in there. It's all pots and pans."

He cupped a hand over his ear. "What's that, Negative Nelly?" He seized something, drew it out, and stood. In his hand he held a dust-coated bottle of wine.

"Guess we'll be enjoying some fine dining tonight." Carol took the bottle from him and put it in her backpack.

They found nothing else of use in the house. As they emerged, the sun was beginning to set. They made their way down a cracked sidewalk, weapons readied and eyes searching the lawns."Gettin' dark," Daryl said. "Better hole up for the night. Keep lookin' in the mornin'."

Carol agreed. It was harder to clear houses by flashlight, after all, and she didn't want to head back empty handed. She glanced at Daryl's broad shoulders as he walked a few steps ahead or her and felt an instinctive stirring. Carol scolded herself. She was like a pathetic schoolgirl, she thought, looking forward to finding herself accidentally alone with her secret crush.


	2. I Dare You to Kiss Me

"This one." Daryl strutted past the SOLD sign and smashed the narrow, vertical window near the front door with the butt of his crossbow. He reached around and unlocked the deadbolt. Once inside, they cleared the house, creeping through it with crossbow and knife ready.  The living room had a leather couch and loveseat, cherry oak end tables, and a glass coffee table. Dry wood rested in the fireplace, over which there hung a massive Thomas Kinkade painting. There were no signs of life or of the living dead.

They moved onto the dining room next. The table was set with fancy china and silver, and two pewter candlesticks rested in the center. Daryl took down one of the decorative oil lamps from the wall and lit it. The sun had almost entirely set now. Daryl held his crossbow in one hand and the oil lamp in the other as they continued on.  

Except for a layer of dust, the kitchen counters were completely bare, and the stainless steel refrigerator was free of any magnets, drawings, or notes. Pots hung neatly from above the stove stop. "Who the hell lives like this?" Daryl asked. "’S like a goddamn museum."

"They were probably staging the home to sell it." Carol had thought of becoming a real estate agent herself, that second year she was married to Ed, but he told her she shouldn't bother because she would just fail. Carol cursed herself for not resisting him back then as she walked to the pantry now. She wasn't optimistic they would find anything worth taking as she opened the doors.

The light of Daryl's lamp rose from behind her shoulder. "Hooooooly shit! That's a hell of a lot of food."

The pantry was stuffed with canned vegetables, spices, oil, vinegar, jams, peanut butter, flour, sugar, salt, sodas, and more.

Daryl tapped the tip of his crossbow against a blue box of powdered milk. "Can little ass kicker drink this shit?"

"If she  _has_  to," Carol said. "It's better than nothing. But it's not going to give her the kind of nutrients formula does. And she'll have trouble breaking it down. It might upset her little tummy."

They made their way up the stairs, where there were only two bedrooms. The door to the first was slightly a jar, and Carol kicked it open while Daryl lit her way. Her knife was drawn and she was ready to stab, and it took a moment for the tension in her muscles to uncoil when there was nothing to kill. Daryl set the oil lamp on top of a bare dresser to light the room and readied his crossbow as he opened the closet. "Clear."

The room had clearly belonged to a teenage boy, as Carol discovered when she opened the first drawer of the dresser. Probably because the house was being shown, the boy had shoved a lot of his stuff in there on top of his underwear - three high school wrestling team trophies, a  _Sports Illustrated_  swimsuit calendar, a portable DVD player, and - the best find - several packages of batteries.

Daryl meanwhile explored the closet. "Kid had some gay lookin' clothes."

Carol glanced over. "Those are singlets for wrestling. That brother I told you about? The one who died in college? He used to be on the high school wrestling team."

Daryl's dark blue eyes flickered softly in the lamplight as he studied her. When he looked at her like that, quietly and tenderly, it always made her heart melt just a little.

"I'm fine," she assured him and turned back to the stash in the dresser drawer. She drew out the DVD player, opened it, and pressed the power button. She could hear the whirring of the disc inside. "Look what I found."

Daryl came and stood behind her to watch over her shoulder. The DVD picked up in whatever spot the boy had left off. Strange sounds emitted from the small speaker of the portable player, grunting and groaning and a woman's cries of "Yes! Yes! Yes! Fuck me hard!" The picture on the screen flickered into focus, and, in the mirror over the dresser, Carol saw Daryl turn, once again, that highly unusual shade of red. She laughed as he reached around her and slammed the screen of the portable DVD player shut. They could still hear the sounds of sex coming from inside it.

"Hey, maybe I wanted to watch that! I told you I've never seen a porno." Carol lifted the screen again. "And that police officer looks very well-toned. Even better than Rick."

Daryl grunted, seized the oil lamp, and left the room. Carol turned off the player and followed him. He declared the upstairs hall bathroom "Clear," and so they moved onto the master bedroom, the last room in the small house. It was even more neat and orderly than the previous room and contained a sparse amount of furniture – one tall dresser, two nightstands, and a king-sized bed, which was neatly made up and coated with decorative pillows. Carol checked the closet while Daryl set the oil lamp on one nightstand and began rustling through the drawers.

"Clear," she said. As she turned from the closet, she saw Daryl pull out a purple, slightly curved object from the top nightstand drawer.

"Hell’s this?" He pressed the button on the bottom. The object began to buzz.

Carol snorted. "And  _I'm_  the one who's never seen a naughty movie? It's a vibrator, silly."

Daryl's hand flew open like he'd just grasped hot coals. The vibrator landed with a thud in the drawer, still buzzing. "How in the hell was I s'pose to know? Don't look nothin' like a cock. And it's small."

"Well, it's not the size that matters, Daryl," Carol said. "It's the  _accuracy_."

He flushed that peculiar red again and slid the drawer shut, which muffled the buzzing but also made it echo.

"Besides, I don't think it's _that_  small." Her eyes flickered quickly to the zipper of his pants and then away. "I suppose the homeowners didn't want that out and about when potential buyers were visiting," she said cheerfully, trying not to laugh.

"C'mon." He lifted the oil lamp. "Let's lock up."

They went back downstairs and found a walker shoving its head into the narrow, broken window by the door, its dead jaw opening and closing as if it were smelling human flesh through its mouth. Carol stabbed it, and then Daryl pushed it out of the window frame. They boarded up the downstairs windows using the shelves from two bookcases in the hallway.  

Next, they cleaned their hands, which had traces of walker blood, using a bottle of Purell they'd found in the downstairs hall bathroom. Then they settled down at the kitchen table for dinner by oil lamp. They shared a can of kidney beans and another of peas and drank a can of root beer each.

"Damn, this tastes good," Daryl said as he set the soda down. "Haven't had a coke in ages."

"It's root beer," she said. He shot her a puzzled looked. "Oh, you meant coke generically."

"Why?" he asked. "What'd ya grow up callin' it in yer neck of the woods?"

"Soda."

"Well, least ya don't call it  _pop_ like Michonne."

Carol laughed. "She does not."

"Mhm. Did once. I think on account of her boyfriend was from Chicago."

Carol wondered how much he and Michonne had talked those nights they were tracking together. Daryl wasn't much of a talker. Carol liked to think there was something special about  _her_  ability to get him to talk. 

A loud belch erupted from Daryl's mouth. He pounded his chest and then stuck his spoon right back into the can of kidney beans. That, at least, had a dampening affect on any possessive romantic feelings that might have been surfacing within her. "You're supposed to say excuse me," she informed him.

"Ain't nobody here."

"What am I? Chopped liver?"

"'Scuse me," he said.

Carol suddenly remembered the wine. She took the oil lamp, stood, and rummaged through the drawers for a corkscrew, but she couldn't find one. Daryl asked what she was looking for, and when she told him, he pulled out his Leatherman, fiddled with it, and then handed it to her with the corkscrew sticking up. "’S drink it in the livin' room."

They left the empty cans on the kitchen table. Carol grabbed two crystal glasses from the hutch in the dinning room and then followed Daryl to the living room. He tried to get the fire going in the fireplace. While he was fiddling with matches and the pages he had ripped out of one of the paperbacks from the bookcases in the hall, she opened the wine and poured them each a glass.

Once the fire was licking the logs, Daryl turned down the oil lamp, took off his leather jacket, and draped it over the back of the love seat. But he chose to sit down on the leather couch. He landed hard on the middle cushion, with a squish and a poof of dust, which caused him to sneeze. The house was completely dark now, except for the glow of the fire. The flames illuminated the living room and Daryl's tired eyes. He pulled off his boots, peeled off his socks, and put his grimy, bare feet straight up on the coffee table, on top of an Ansel Adams book of photographs and next to the bottle of wine.

"Lovely," Carol said.

"Ain't yer house. Cain't tell me what to do."

She sat down next to him on the far right cushion. "I was hoping we'd find some more DVDs down here. Use that player. Watch something."

" _Roman Holiday?"_ he asked, and she was surprised he'd remembered her favorite movie.

Carol smiled. "But it looks like we won't be able to have a romantic movie night after all. Unless you want to watch that porno?"

"Stop."

She handed him his glass of wine from the coffee table and plucked up her own.

Daryl took a sip, hissed with satisfaction, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. She wondered if he planned to sleep here. There was that nice, comfy looking king-size bed in the master bedroom, and the second floor was always safer. Wherever they slept, it would be wise to stick together, in the same room. If he dozed off here on the couch, she'd move over to the love seat and curl up there. "But since there are no movies," she said. "I guess we better amuse ourselves by playing a game."

He opened one eye. "You and yer damn games."

"It'll be fun," she insisted. "Truth or Dare."

Daryl opened his other eye. "I know that game. We ain't doin' any dares. Liable to get killed."

"Well, I'm not going to dare you to step outside and hug a walker!" Carol said. "I might dare you to do a silly dance or something like that."

"In that case, I'm only takin' truths."

She smiled. At least that meant he was willing to play. "Then here's your truth. Who's the girl in the photo?" It was a risky move. He'd already called her nosy once, and he might get mad at her again. But she really wanted to know.

He swung his feet down from the coffee table and onto the floor. He sat forward and guzzled his wine, draining the entire glass in a few large gulps. That wasn't a good sign. The stem met the top of the coffee table with a clink as he set the wine glass down. He refilled it.

"Hey! I get half the bottle," she said. "Don't forget just because I'm drinking slower." Carol took a small sip of her wine. "Was she your girlfriend?" The idea of Daryl having a cute, young, smiling girlfriend was incredibly  _weird_  to her, but she couldn't think of any other explanation.

"What kind of perv do ya take me for? She's seventeen!"

"Well, I didn't know that! She looked like she was in her early twenties to me." The older Carol got, the harder it was for her to tell the difference. "And at one time you were younger. I didn't know how old the photo was."

"She's my niece."

Carol stared at him over her wine glass. " _Merle's_  daughter?"

Daryl nodded. "Only met her once, long 'fore that picture was taken. She was eight at the time. That's when Merle first learned 'bout her. Girl's mama tracked Merle down, started askin' for money. But he weren't exactly the only man she'd been with 'round that time. He took me with him to meet the girl, see if I thought she was his."

"And did you think so?"

"How the hell would I know? Paternity test said she was. So Merle started sending her mama money. He only saw the girl a couple, maybe three times a year, whenever her mama'd get a notion to let him."

"What's your niece's name?"

"Savannah."

"So why do you have the photo?" Carol asked. "If you've only met her once?"

"Took it from Merle's stuff after he died. Wanted a memento, I guess. I ain't got a picture of Merle. That's the closest thing I've got."

"She has his eyes," Carol said, remembering the photo and remembering the time she had stared into Merle's eyes -  _stared him down_  - and warned him not to hurt Daryl. "Did she die when it all started?"

"Dunno. Merle made us go lookin' for her after the shit hit the fan. Figured her mama weren't gonna be able to protect her. Me and him went to their trailer park in Macon, but the whole place'd been cleaned out. Looked like they ran. We was checkin' out all the camps 'tween Macon and Atlanta, which is the direction Merle figured they'd of moved. Checkin' to see if she was in any of 'em. She weren't."

Carol had always wondered what had brought the Dixon brothers into their camp, when they seemed perfectly capable of surviving on their own and neither was precisely a people person. "What made you stay with us, after you saw she wasn't there?"

"I just did a truth. ‘S yer turn."

Carol set her wine glass down on the coffee table. "I'll take a dare."

"Hmmm..." Daryl slid down to the opposite end of the couch from her, swiveled himself so he was leaned back against the arm, and then abruptly swung one bare foot into her lap. The other he kept planted on the carpet. "Dare ya to rub my filthy, stinkin' foot."

She laughed, happy and relieved he was playing along. "Can I at least wash it first?"

"Nah. It's what ya deserve, for makin' me play this dumb ass game in the first place."

She wrapped her hand around his foot. He seemed surprised that she accepted the dare, and he began to pull away. It was the first time he'd flinched at her touch in days. Carol held his foot in place. "Relax," she insisted.

He left his foot in her lap, but she could see the tension in every one of his muscles. She began with a gentle massage, and eventually, he  _did_  relax into her touch. With one arm slung across the back of the couch, he closed his eyes.

Carol worked her thumb in steadily but gently on a tight spot in the center. His foot was rough, callused, and dirty, but she loved the low murmur of pleasure that escaped his lips as she worked her way down it. She appreciated that he was letting his guard down with her. She knew it wasn't an easy thing to do. Carol couldn't let herself be vulnerable either, except - sometimes - with  _him_.

He winced when her fingers touched his ankle, and she realized he had blisters. She returned her fingers to the sole of his foot and continued the massage. "You need new boots."

"I know. Hard to find my size. Got big feet."

"Well, you know what they say about big feet," she teased.

He kept his eyes closed as he replied, "Pffft."

"So you aren't confirming?"

"Stop."

She stopped rubbing.

"Not  _that_ ," he clarified. "Meant stop  _practicin'_  yer flirtin' on me."

Carol resumed her rubbing. "Fine. I'll practice on Bob instead."

Daryl's eyes shot open. "What?"

"The new guy you and Glenn brought in."

"Yeah, know who he is. Don't practice on 'em."

"Why not?" Carol asked.

"Well...'cause he might take ya serious!"

"So you're saying I should just keep practicing on you? Because there's no risk you'll ever take me seriously?"

He peered at her through his disarrayed bangs. He seemed unsure of what she was asking him, and he didn't reply. She brushed his foot off her lap and reclaimed her wine glass.

He turned again, his back against the couch cushion, his wine glass in his hand. "Ain'tcha gonna go decontaminate yer hands?"

"Decontaminate?" Carol asked. She thought of that time Andrea had mocked him for using the word observant, saying,  _wow, that's a big word for someone like you - three whole syllables_. "Andrea would be impressed. Five whole syllables."

Daryl chuckled, but the smile faded to a solemn grimace. He raised his glass. "A toast to the dead." They didn't often talk about the dead. You couldn't. There was no time to grieve them. "To Merle," he said, his voice thick, "and Andrea. To Lori and Dale and T-Dog."

"And to Sophia." Carol could tell she'd surprised Daryl by mentioning her daughter. She usually kept a tight clamp on that part of her heart, but she was feeling like she could risk mentioning her little girl this evening. Maybe it was the warmth of the fire. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the company.

"To Sophia," he said softly, his eyes flickering with some feeling she could not read - guilt, sadness, sympathy, or anger - maybe all four swirling at once in that cloudy blue sea.

They clanged their glasses together. Carol drained her entire glass quickly. Daryl gave her a wary look as he refilled it for her. "I'm fine," she assured him, even though the pain was worming its way into her heart. She distracted herself from it by saying, "And no, I'm not going to run off and wash my hands right away. You aren't as disgusting as you think you are, you know. And it's your turn for a truth."

"What if I want to take the dare?" he asked.

She plucked up the glass he'd just refilled. "I dare you to streak naked from the living room to the kitchen."

"I'll take a truth," he said.

"Too late," she teased.

"Didn't  _say_  I was takin' a dare. Asked what  _if_  I  _wanted_  to take a dare."

"Fine. Here's your truth - why did you stay with our camp, when you saw your niece wasn't in it, instead of moving on?"

A reluctant, growl-like sigh rumbled in his throat. He clearly didn't want to share his motives.

"You have to answer," Carol told him. "Or you have to take the dare."

"Merle and me," he said, "we was just waitin' for a good chance to rob ya. We was gonna take the cigarettes, the canned food, the gas, the ammo, the guns, and Dale's RV. We was waitin' 'til y'all was at yer most vulnerable. But then Merle and them went on that run, and Rick cuffed Merle to that pipe, and Merle disappeared, and I didn't feel much like robbin' y'all by myself." He looked down into his wine glass and studied the ripples. "So now you know."

"Now I know," she said quietly.

"Ya think I'm shit now?" he asked.

"You didn't go through with it."

"Only 'cause Merle never came back from that run. I would've."

"No," she said. "You wouldn't have."

"I ain't the choir boy you think I am."

She laughed. "I've never mistaken you for a choir boy, Daryl."

He bent his head down and smiled.

"And anyway, it doesn't matter," she insisted. "You wouldn't do it  _now_." Daryl had a hard time seeing the good in himself, no matter how often she pointed it out. "Even  _you_  can admit that."

His eyes flickered in the flames of the fireplace as he looked at her seriously. "I'd kill for y'all now. Die for ya."

"I know you would." When he looked away from her reassuring gaze, she said, "My turn. I'll take a truth, because your dares just involve service work."

"A'right." He ran a finger up and down the stem of his wine glass. He had a fierce look of concentration. "Was ya close to yer brother? Roy?"

Well that was disappointing. There was nothing at all naughty about that question. Daryl clearly didn't understand how you were supposed to play this game. But Carol was again surprised by his ability to remember the little things she'd told him - that one detail, her brother's name, which she'd only mentioned once. "Not as close as I wish we'd been. He moved in his own circle with his friends, and I moved in mine. I never knew what was going on with him, really. But he was a good guy. I sometimes wonder if my life would have turned out differently if he had lived...if I ever would have married Ed, or if I'd feel like I had a place to run to when he started hitting me."

"Ya couldn't run to yer daddy?"

"He died a few months after I was married, before Ed hit me for the first time."

"But if he weren't dead?"

Carol understood what Daryl was asking her. He wanted to do know if her father had abused her, the way his had. "My father...he never hit me or my mom or Roy. But he was very traditional. And he was stern. When I eloped with Ed, he was livid. He thought I was abandoning him and that it was my duty as a daughter to take care of him. I don't know if I would have turned to him for help even if he had lived. I probably wouldn't have been able to stand hearing him say I told you so.”

Daryl nodded.

"Truth or dare?" Carol asked.

"Don't like yer dares," he grumbled. "Truth I guess."

"Who was the condom for? The one I found in your wallet?" Carol wanted to know, and she didn't want to know.

Daryl flushed that unnatural red again. "No one."

"You and Michonne aren't..."

Daryl's eyes widened. "What?"

"Well, you clearly respect her."

"Sure," Daryl said. "Ya seen her with that sword thing?"

"The katana? Yes. It's impressive. So…you respect her, she's pretty, and you two have spent all that time alone together, out tracking."

"Ya gotta be shittin' me. I ain't at all her type." Carol noticed he didn't say  _Michonne_  wasn't  _his_  type. "Hell, ‘Chonne went to Emory. Used to live in a luxury condo in the big city and go to modern art shows and shit."

"See, I didn't know any of that about her. But you've  _really_  gotten to know her."

"Not in the biblical sense I ain't! 'Sides, think she's sweet on Rick."

"Rick?" Carol asked, her voice rising with surprise. "His wife just died."

"Yeah, and he just stopped bein' batshit crazy not that long ago. But apparently he's  _well-toned_. Ain't that what ya said?" Daryl sounded almost jealous. "And he'd be hell of a lot better to take to an art show than me."

"I don't think Michonne's going to any art shows any time soon," Carol told him.

He pointed his wine glass toward the painting above the fireplace, Thomas Kinkade's  _Away From It All,_ which depicted a small cottage by a rolling stream in the forest. The cottage was all aglow inside, and outside, a dog slept peacefully on the porch. The leaves of the nearby trees had turned red, and moonlight shimmered on the water. "Think she'd like that? Brighten up the prison?"

Carol didn't like the idea of Daryl bringing Michonne a gift. "I doubt she likes Thomas Kinkade."

"Who? ‘S wrong with 'em?"

"Well...he's very sentimental. And commercial. I doubt Michonne would take him seriously as an artist."

"Ya like it?" he asked.

She looked at the painting in the glow of the flames that were slowly eating away the logs in the fireplace. "Yeah, but I'm not deep. And I  _am_  sentimental." She'd kept that Cherokee rose he'd given her, after all. She'd pressed it between the pages of Sophia's journal. Her daughter had liked to write poetry to pass the dull hours in the camp, and to survive, somehow, the horror of their new world. Carol kept the journal - and the pressed flower - in her backpack always.

"Guess I ain't deep neither." His eyes lingered on the warm, clean little cottage. "Hell, I'd love to live in a place just like that. Ya know, if there weren't walkers all over the damn woods. Just...go huntin'. Come home in the quiet moonlight to a good, comfortable chair. Warm fire. Loyal dog."

"What about a woman?" Carol asked. "Would there be a woman in that cottage?"

"Loyal woman'd be a'ight too. Long as she can cook."

"Chauvinist," Carol scolded, but what she thought was -  _I can cook._

"And she don't talk too much," Daryl added with a light smirk.

"Unlike me, huh?"

He sipped, rested the wine glass back on his knee, and said, "Don't mind yer voice none."

"No? Why's that?"

"’S soft. Ya don't yell." His eyes caressed the painting. "Even back on Hershel's farm, when I was bein' an ass and yellin' at ya...ya just talked back real steady and calm." He shook his head. "Don't know how ya do it."

Carol looked at the little log cabin and wondered, for a moment, what it would be like to live in such a place, at the edge of the world, cooking whatever kill Daryl brought home, snuggling up on the couch after dinner before the fire, and sharing a bottle of wine. Not unlike what they were doing right now, come to think of it - except for the snuggling part. In the fireplace before them, the flames snapped and crackled and burned away her fantasy. "You never said who the condom was for."

"Did say. No one."

"Then why do you carry it? Just in case? You're always prepared?" She smiled. "A regular Boy Scout?"

"Hell yeah!"

That was not the answer Carol had been expecting from him.

"Can use 'em for lots of things," Daryl went on. "Tourniquet for one."

"What?"

"Sure. Yer cut, bleedin', just tie it tight 'round yerself."

"I'm not sure how well that would work," Carol said skeptically.

"Fire starter. They's real flammable. Stuff it full of dry leaves and then...woosh!" He opened one hand in an explosive gesture.

Was he joking? It was hard to tell. He was saying it all so seriously, and if anyone could come up with multiple survival-related uses for anything, it was Daryl.

"Sling shot," he continued. "Instant weapon. A slingshot's more deadly than ya might think." Carol's lips began to twitch into a smile. She still wasn't one hundred percent certain he was joking, but his next suggested use for condoms finally made it clear: "Water balloons. Ya never know when a water balloon fight's fixin' to break out."

Carol laughed and playfully slapped his shoulder. "You're full of it," she told him.

He finally smiled.

Carol accepted that she wasn't going to get a straight answer about the condom. "My turn."

"Truth or dare?" he asked.

"I'll take another dare."

This time he swiveled his left foot into her lap. She rolled her eyes, set down her wine glass, and gave him a three-minute foot massage, during which she discovered his littlest toe was ticklish. The massage ended when he jerked his foot away because she wouldn't stop tickling him.

"Your turn," she said. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth," he answered. He was never going to let her dare him again, it seemed, after her streaking suggestion.

"How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

A line jumped in his jaw and he cast his eyes down. "The usual," he said. "Seventeen."

Carol wasn't aware there was a  _usual_ , and it sounded like he was lying. She could hear it in the forced tone of his voice, but she didn't press him. In fact, she wished she hadn't asked the question. Maybe he'd been unusually young, or unusually old. Maybe he'd lost it in some unpleasant, embarrassing, or regretful way. Maybe Merle had dragged him to a prostitute because he was too shy to get a girlfriend, or maybe he'd been seduced by one of his father's girlfriends. His tight expression caused all sorts of unpleasant scenarios to surface to her mind, and she decided it was best to let the subject slide.

"My turn," she said quickly. "I'll take a truth, because I don't want to rub anymore feet." That wasn't entirely true. She'd missed physical contact ever since Sophia had died. A daily, human, affectionate touch of some kind had been a normal thing for her in the midst of this bleak apocalypse, and it had vanished when Sophia vanished. It was rare that unmarried adults touched one another. Carol liked just being able to  _touch_  someone again. Maybe she'd ask for a back rub if he ever accepted a dare. He'd given her a shoulder rub once, for a little while, until he gotten all weird about it and backed off.  

Daryl sipped his wine, ran his fingers across his lips, and stared into the fire.  

"It can be anything. It doesn't have to be embarrassing," she said. "You can ask me my favorite color."

"Know yer favorite color. It's yellow."

How did he know  _that_? She didn't remember telling him that, but she supposed it must have come up, somehow, at some point. "Ask me anything."

"A'ight," he said, setting his wine glass on the table and leaning back against the cushions of the couch. "Who do ya think's the best lookin' guy in our camp?"

She chuckled. "You just want to hear me say you."

"What? Nah. Figure'd you'd say Rick."

"Why would I say Rick?"

"Ya compared him to that porno guy."

"Because he was playing a cop," she reminded him.

"Michonne says Rick's...uh...classically handsome."

Carol chuckled. "I don't know about that. He's good-looking. I don't really see him as the Cary Grant type, though. Your turn. Truth or dare?"

"Ya didn't answer yer truth."

"Yes, I did.  _You,_  of course."

"C'mon," he said, "stop teasin' and just answer."

"I just did!"

"Yer the one wanted to play this game."

"Daryl, I'm not teasing. I think you're the best-looking guy in our camp."

Daryl's thumb went straight to his mouth. He chewed on the nail. It was a nervous habit, but she couldn't help but feel a wave of affection for him every time he did it. He peered at her through his bangs, studying her face, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to believe her.

"Truth or dare?" she asked him.

"Dare," he muttered around his thumbnail. "Long as it don't involve streakin'."

He apparently didn't want to risk another truth after the virginity question. She contemplated all the things she could dare him to do. Shoulder rub? Foot rub? Back rub? In the end, she settled on something else entirely: "Okay," she said. "I dare you to kiss me."


	3. Strange Dreams

"Stop." 

"Chicken," Carol told him, trying to sound more nonchalant than she felt. "Afraid of a little woman like me."

"What? I ain't afraid of ya."

"Then take the dare."

The tip of his tongue snaked out between his lips. He licked them instinctively, from left to right and then back again, before drawing his tongue inside. She couldn't help but focus on his mouth the entire time, and her heart began nervously pattering.

He set his wine glass down on the coffee table. "Tongue or no tongue?" he asked.

Carol's stomach cinched. She felt a moment of stark uncertainty, like a little girl who has been playing with fire and suddenly realizes she might actually burn the house down. "Tongue." She tried to say it casually, teasingly, but she was afraid it might have come out in a squeak.

He slid a little closer to her on the couch and stretched his arm out across the back of it. He was inches from her face, and she could feel his hot breath. She swallowed. As he leaned in, she closed her eyes. His lips touched down on her cheek. They pressed warmly and softly against her flesh for a brief moment, heightening her expectation, and then...he licked her suddenly and sloppily. His wet, outstretched tongue drew across her cheek from chin to forehead.

Carol jerked away. "Ewww!"

Daryl snickered.

"Gross!" At least her heart had ceased its silly palpitations.

"Ya said tongue."

"You're like a 5th grade boy!"

"Yep," he agreed. 

She lifted the tail of his canvass shirt, bent her head down, and wiped her cheek with the fabric.

"Ya didn't want to treasure that?" Daryl asked with a smirk. "Never wash yer cheek again?"

"Screw you!" she cried, but she couldn't help laughing. It had been so unexpected. So out of character. Even if he hadn't taken her seriously, and even if she didn't like being licked on her face, at least he was having fun with her. Daryl could be so unflinchingly serious. So irritable. So heavy. But tonight...tonight maybe he was finally enjoying himself. He was finally joking back. The only problem was...she hadn't entirely been joking.

"Truth or dare?" asked Daryl as he slid back toward the arm of the couch again.

Carol placed a palm on her cheek. It was dry now, but still warm. "Truth."

"Who ya practicn' for?"

"What?"

"All the flirtin'. Who ya practicin' for?"

She looked at his wine glass on the table and noticed it was empty. Somehow, so was hers. That left only one glass in the bottle. "You asked that the other day on the watch tower," she answered, "and I told you, no one. I'm just getting confident with the tool."

Skepticism grayed his eyed. "Not Rick?"

"No! Not Rick. Truth or dare?" she asked him.

"Truth."

She chose a variation on one of the questions he had asked her. "Who do you think is the prettiest girl in the prison?" She figured he would probably say Michonne. Even if there was nothing going on between them, Michonne was a stunning woman.

"Little Ass Kicker."

"Woman. I meant woman."

"Ya didn't say woman."

Carol shook her head. "You're being really legalistic about this game."

Daryl smiled. "Truth or dare?" he asked.

"I'll take a dare this time."

He reached for the wine bottle and filled her empty glass, thereby emptying the bottle. "Dare you to chug that in under forty seconds."

"Come on," she said, smiling. "I'm a complete lightweight, and I already had two glasses."

"Then this should be interestin'."

She shook her head.

"Yer the one who took the dare."

"It would be a waste of wine," she insisted. "You're supposed to savor wine."

"Chicken," he said. "Afraid of a little glass of wine."

Carol seized the glass and began chugging it. Daryl laughed. She'd never heard him laugh quite like that before - not a chuckle, not a snort, not a snicker, but an outright laugh. He sounded happy. It was almost worth the burning in her throat just to hear it. In the end, she drank too fast, spluttered on the last half ounce, and spewed droplets of wine on his face. He blinked and drew his fingers slowly across his eyelids to wipe them clean.

"Sorry," she giggled. She reached over and, with her thumb, wiped the remaining drops from his cheeks. She then put her thumb in her mouth to suck it clean.

Daryl stared at her, his own mouth slightly agape. When she noticed him watching, she slid her thumb slowly and suggestively back and forth in her mouth. She circled the tip with her tongue, and then thrust it in and sucked with an mmmmmh sound.

"Stop!" he insisted.

She erupted in laughter. When she'd settled down, she asked, "So should I put that super sexy move in the no column in my flirtation notebook?"

"Ya have a notebook?"

Did he really imagined her taking notes on flirting techniques? "No, I don't have a notebook!" She tapped her forehead. "Just a steel trap mind."

"Are ya already buzzed?"

She ignored his question. "Truth or dare?"

To her surprise, he said, "Dare."

She wanted to dare him to kiss her properly, on the lips, to make it clear she hadn't just been giving him a hard time, but she couldn't quite summon the courage, even with this buzz tingling her brain. So she just said the first thing that came to her mind, a mind that was somewhat fuzzy from the wine. "Chicken dance."

Daryl frowned. "Hell's a chicken dance?" he grumbled. "Chickens don't dance."

"You know that song, with the accordion? You flap your arms like a chicken and shimmy down and clap?" Sophia used to love doing the chicken dance.

"No idea what yer talkin' 'bout."

"Fine. Then I dare you to do the Macarena."

Carol was fully ready for him to tell her that he had no idea what the Macarena was, but instead he stood up and faced her. With an annoyed look on his face, he put one arm straight out, then the other. Just as stiffly, he put both arms behind his head. The he lowered his right arm to touch his left hip before lowering his left arm to touch his right looked like he was doing some kind of angry warm-up stretch.

Daryl plopped back down on the couch. "Happy now?"

"That was not the Macarena. Not by a long shot."

"Well yer gonna have to pay extra if'n ya want the hip thrust."

She snorted. Daryl's playfulness continued to surprise her. Maybe he really could let himself relax with her in a way he couldn't with anyone else. Stepping into this house, boarding it up, shutting off the world...it was as if, for a moment, they'd closed the shades on all the horror, death, and loss that surrounded them. She didn't want to have to draw those shades up again in the morning. She didn't want this time before the fire to end.

"Better get some shut eye," he said. "Got to find that formula in the mornin'."

And just like that, it did end.

Carol sighed.

[*]

Carol took the oil lamp to the downstairs hall bathroom to freshen up. Amazingly, there was still some water in the toilet, and it flushed, but it didn't refill. She used the Purell to clean her hands. She almost dropped it trying to pick it up. She wasn't entirely steady on her feet. Next, she found an unopened tube of toothpaste in the vanity and brushed her teeth with a single fingertip. When she emerged, she was startled by a dark mass in the hallway and reached for the knife on her belt.

"Just me," Daryl said. "Got to take a piss."

"Did you put out the fire?"

"Yep."

She handed him the oil lamp and waited in the hall. With the windows boarded up, the darkness was nearly absolute, and she took a maglite off her belt and turned it on. She swept the hallway with it. She smiled as the beam weaved up and down against the blank wall. For some reason, the light struck her as funny.

Daryl peed for what seemed like an eternity. She could hear the gushing of water and even the sound of his zipper rasping up. She could also hear the metaled clinking of the toilet handle as he tried to flush a few times before he realized it wasn't going to work. The lid of the toilet clonked down.

"Wash your hands!" she ordered through the door. "There's hand sanitizer in there. And toothpaste! Brush your teeth!"

"Yes, ma'am," he called back.

Carol chuckled.

He came out a minute and a half later with the oil lamp in one hand. He held the palm of his other hand right up to her nose, forcing her to breath the alcoholic scent of the hand sanitizer. She drew her head back. Then he leaned his face in close to hers and breathed mint in her face. She held up a hand between his face and hers. "Okay," she said. "I approve."

"Gonna check me for ticks 'fore bed, too?" he asked. "That's what my mama always did."

"You want me to?" she asked with a wiggle of her eyebrow. "I'll be very thorough."

"Stop." Daryl turned and led the way toward the stairs. When she stumbled into the wall of the stairwell after the second step, he stepped down and put an arm around her waist.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I'm not drunk."

He slid his arm away from her waist, and suddenly she wished she hadn't pretended to be more sober than she was. She made her way cautiously up the stairs behind him, holding onto the railing with one hand. In the upstairs hallway, the eerie glow of the oil lamp dispelled a portion of the darkness with a cloud of light. When they reached the master bedroom, Daryl slid his crossbow from his shoulder, propped it against the wall, and set the lamp down on the nightstand. Then he began flinging a bunch of the decorative pillows off the bed. They hit the wall with an almost imperceptible thud and slid down onto the plush, brown-and-gold flecked carpet. Next he turned down the comforter, grabbed a real pillow, and tossed it on the was picking up a second pillow when she asked, "What are you doing?"

"Makin' my bed," he said. "Saw extra blankets in the closet."

"Daryl, it's a king-size bed. You don't have to sleep on the floor. We can share it. I promise I won't bite."

He toyed with the edge of the case of the pillow he held in his hands, twirling the cloth around one fingertip. "Ya sure?"

"That I don't bite?"

"That ya don't mind."

"No I don't mind." She didn't know what his problem was. They'd slept side by side on the ground before a campfire in the past. What difference did a bed make?

"A'right," he said, as though he didn't quite believe her. He eyed her a moment longer, his fingers nervously toying with the edge of the pillow case, before he tossed the pillow back on the bed.

As Carol walked to the other side of the bed, slowly and not precisely in a straight line, Daryl began emptying his pockets and unclipping things from his belt and laying them on the nightstand one by one: hunting knife, magazine pouch, maglite, Leatherman, handgun, wallet, car keys. She did the same thing on the opposite nightstand, even while watching him out of the corner of her eye.

The metal buckle of Daryl's belt clanged about as he unfastened it. Daryl slid his worn, leather belt from the loops with a slow rasp. He lay it on the nightstand and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Meanwhile, Carol took off her boots and socks, leaving them in a pile on the floor. She had to hold onto the nightstand for support while she did it. When she looked up from her abandoned footwear, Daryl was peeling off his outer shirt. He had on a white muscle shirt underneath, and her eyes were drawn to his bare, sinewy arms and shoulders. She'd seen them often enough, of course, given what he usually wore, but he'd taken to long-sleeved, canvass work shirts when the weather cooled. He wore them beneath his sleeveless leather vest. He was already barefoot, having left his boots and socks downstairs, and he now crawled into bed with his t-shirt and pants still on.

She took off her outer shirt, wrapped her arms behind herself to unhook her bra, and then pulled it deftly through the straps of her tank top. Daryl watched her like he thought she was doing a magic trick. Carol was feeling the wine, and also feeling a little unsteady on her feet, as she slipped out of her pants. In the prison, she slept in nothing but her underwear and tank top, so she didn't think anything of it until she began to turn down her side of the blanket and noticed Daryl staring at her, his eyes fallen to the hem of her shirt.

"Enjoying the view?" she teased. She didn't think anything of his gaze. He was a man. Men looked. It didn't mean he had any particular desire for her.

Hastily, he looked away. His Adam's apple bobbed as he reached over and turned down the oil lamp until it was nothing but a tiny, dim, blue glow. She supposed he was leaving it burning lightly like that, so if anything happened in the night, he could turn it up and they could see.

Carol settled on her side facing Daryl. She could barely make him out in the faint flicker of the now tiny flame of the lamp, but she could see enough to know he had turned his back to her.

"'Goodnight," she said.

"'Nite."

"Sleep tight."

"Hmm."

That was the last she heard from him before she drifted off to sleep.

[*]

Carol dreamed of Sophia riding a bike, crying, "Mama, look!" Her little girl pushed down hard on the pedals, but then the bike sprouted wings and flew off into the sky, while Carol yelled desperately, "Come back! Come back, Sophia!"

"Come back, Shane, don't you mean?"

Carol lowered her eyes from the sky and turned to see Shane grinning at her. "Miss me yet?" he asked. Shane's head suddenly snapped back at his neck. A black bullet hole appeared in his forehead. A trickle of bright red blood ran down over his nose and onto his grinning lips. The gunshot left a ringing in Carol's ear, which she covered with her left hand as she turned slowly to see Rick lowering a handgun.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, her own voice echoing in her ears.

"Little Shane killed my wife!" Rick yelled. Rick took an angry step toward her. His face morphed into Ed's. "I know Sophia ain't mine," Ed spat. "You've been whoring around, haven't you? How is it you don't get pregnant for years, and suddenly, you are?"

"Ed," Carol reassured him frantically. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Saw you leaving cookies in the mailbox for him!" Ed shouted, his face turning blue with anger.

"For Christmas!" she pleaded, walking backwards away from him.

"Get over here!" he yelled.

"No," Carol pleaded. She reached for her knife on her belt but found she was only wearing a tank top and underwear. "No!" she shouted again.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped and turned.

"Shhhh!" Daryl said. "Ya's havin' a nightmare."

She breathed in and out and started to sob.

"Shhh!" he reassured her. The flame of the oil lamp danced on the nightstand behind him. He must have turned it way up, because gorgeous orange and red fire cast a flowery aura above his head. "Shhh..." he murmured. "Yer a'right." And then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her cheek.

As he kissed away the hot, wet tears, she turned her head so that his mouth pressed against hers. His lips were cracked, and yet ever so soft, and she didn't want to stop tasting them. She plunged her tongue inside his mouth. Daryl moaned and caught her tongue with his. They tangled together in a wild dance until he pulled away, breathing hard.

"Truth or dare?" she asked.

He looked deeply into her eyes, holding her intensely in a smoky, gray-blue gaze. "Dare," he said, in a voice that suggested he was daring her to really dare him.

"I dare you to fuck me."

His lips crushed down on hers, and he began to slide her tank top up to reveal her bare breasts. She reached for the top button of his pants and ripped it open before yanking his zipper down. The sensation of his erection rubbing against the silky fabric of her panties caused her to groan wildly. His voice was hoarse and hungry in her ear as he asked her, "This what ya want, Carol? Want me to fuck ya? Good and hard?" His strong hand was on one of her breasts now, greedily kneading...

But then his hand wasn't on her breast. Suddenly, it was on her shoulder again. And her shirt wasn't pushed up. It was pulled all the way down. His voice wasn't hoarse and hungry. It was worried. The flame of the oil lamp wasn't turned all the way up to dance devilishly above his head. It was nothing but a faint, low dot of blueish white.

Daryl was shaking her awake.

Carol gasped and blinked. Daryl came into focus. He rolled over on his side to turn the flame of the oil lamp up and then rolled back toward her. She could see him better now. "Ya a'right?" he asked.

"Is this still my dream? Am I still asleep?"

"Ya were havin' a nightmare. But yer awake now."

She looked around the room, rubbing her eyes and gradually confirming that, this time, she really was awake.

"Ya a'right?" he asked again. "Must have been a real bad dream. Ya was moanin' and groanin' somethin' awful."

Carol could feel the heat in her cheeks and wondered if he could tell how deeply she was blushing. She felt hot all over, and she was tingling between her legs. "It was a strange dream," she said.

Daryl rolled onto his back, rested his head on the pillow, and lay with one hand on his chest. "Too much wine too fast, maybe," he said. "I always have weird dreams when I get liquored up."

Carol didn't say anything. The blush was still warm on her cheek.

"What were ya dreamin' 'bout, exactly?" He turned his head slightly to look at her. "Sure were groaning."

"Nothing," she told him, lowering her eyes. "Just...flying bikes and Shane and Rick."

His eyes narrowed. "Why Rick?"

"I don't know. It was weird. Forget about it. Let's get back to sleep." She was exhausted. "Turn down the lamp."

Daryl rolled to his side and twisted the knob. The lamp's fire descended into the darkness, but it didn't go out all the way. A small flame, quiet but steady, burned against the night.


	4. Me Tarzan, You Jane

They hadn't boarded up the upstairs windows. Walkers never used ladders, after all. So when the sun rose over the horizon early the next morning, the light streamed in through the open blinds and tugged Daryl's eyelids open. Groggy and half awake, he suddenly feared he'd been trapped underneath something in the forest. There was an unfamiliar weight on his chest, but it was too light for a rock or a fallen tree log, too soft, and too warm.

Blinking himself awake, he craned his neck, looked down, and remembered where he was. At some point in their sleep, either he or Carol must have kicked off the covers, because they were now half on the floor and half draped over their lower legs, which meant he could see Carol's panties. She had curled up against his side, and his chest had become her pillow. Her small hand rested on his hip.

Daryl closed his eyes and wondered what he should do. Wake her? Ease out from under her? Or just lie here for a while, feeling the warm weight of her against him? It was a strange, but not unpleasant, sensation. Was it the way she was lying on him that made it hard to breathe? Maybe she was pushing the air out of him or something. He had an unfamiliar and powerful urge to wrap his arms around her, but he kept them stiffly at his side.

He opened his eyes and peered down at her again. His focus was drawn, like a magnet, to the tight curve of the silky black panties against her ass. She murmured in her sleep and shifted against him. In the process, her tank top rode up a little until it bunched up just under her breasts. Her bare stomach now pressed against the thin fabric of his undershirt. As she stirred, her hand slid from his hip and came to rest on his upper leg, at which point he became painfully aware of his erection.

_Shit._

If Carol woke up now, she'd notice, and either she'd tease him mercilessly about it, or she'd be afraid he was lusting after her and stop teasing him altogether. He didn't like either of those possibilities, but the second was even worse than the first. He might tell her to stop when she teased him, but there was also something about it that he liked, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was embarrassing and comforting at the same time. It annoyed him even while it made him feel strangely hopeful. Carol was like the light from a prison window. That light might taunt a prisoner with the promise of a freedom he could never obtain, but without it, there was only darkness.

Carol whimpered softly in her sleep, almost like a kitten mewling, but he couldn't tell if the sound was one of need, pain, or pleasure. Cautiously, he drew himself very slowly into a half sitting position so he could stretch to reach the covers and draw them up to hide the evidence of his morning arousal. Carol's head began to slide off his chest as he strained for the blanket, and she opened her eyes at the precise moment he jerked it to his waist.

"What are you doing?" she asked. As the warmth of her body slowly withdrew, he felt like some part of him was being peeled away. "Oh, sorry," she said, now that she had put some distance between them. "Must have cuddled up in my sleep."

"'S a'right," he told her.

"What time is it?"

"Dunno. After sunrise."

"Guess we should get moving." She slid out of bed and pulled on her pants while he averted his eyes. "I'm thinking we should check out that church we passed on the way here." She picked up her outer shirt and worked her way through the arms. "A lot of churches collect diapers and formula for crisis pregnancy centers. Maybe they have some they hadn't gotten around to delivering yet. It's worth a try, anyway."

"Yeah," he agreed, holding the blanket tightly against his waist.

"You coming?" she asked.

That was precisely what he was  _not_  doing. "Ya go on down." He closed his eyes and winced as he realized the potential double meaning of what he'd just said. "Be there in a sec. Gotta take a piss."

"I'll fix us some breakfast."

[*]

After breakfast, Carol and Daryl loaded the trunk of the sedan with their new loot. As they were working, a few lumbering walkers caught wind of them and began moving their way. "We better pick up the pace," Carol warned him.

"Ya finish loadin'." Daryl stood guard and picked off the walkers with his crossbow one by one as Carol made one last trip inside to fill a cardboard box. By the time she returned, a larger herd was working its way down from the cul-de-sac. "Hurry up," he warned her.

She thrust the box into the trunk and slammed it shut. Daryl jumped when he felt her hand dive into the pocket of his pants. She drew out the car keys while he shot another walker.

"Come on!" she ordered as she ran for the driver's seat.

He didn't follow right away. Instead, he reclaimed his arrows as more geeks ambled his way, by which time she had started the car. When he jumped in the passenger's side, she peeled off before he could quite close the door. He yanked it shut as she plowed down a walker, thudded over it, and then swerved recklessly around two more. His outer thigh hit the stick shift before he could regain his his balance and plant himself firmly on his seat. "Jesus! Think yer Dale Earnhardt?"

"Hey, don't scold me," she said. "You were the one cutting it close back there."

"Needed my arrows back. Ain't got that many."

Carol shook her head and drove on.

[*]

The large white sign out front read First United Methodist Church. Underneath the church name, the movable black letters of the signboard had been rearranged. The unused letters were lined up in a single row at the bottom, and the rest spelled out – "We love unicorns."

Daryl stared at the message. "Hell does that mean?" he asked.

Carol shrugged. "I guess it means that whoever was playing with the sign loves unicorns."

Three abandoned cars littered the sleepy gravel parking lot. There were no signs of walkers. They climbed the front stairs but found the doors locked. The windows were boarded up, which would make busting in difficult. Someone had been living here at some point, might still be living here - either that, or walking around dead inside.

"I have an idea," Carol said. She led him through the gravel lot.

His eyes swept the ground. "Those tire tracks are fresh," he said. "Someone's been here."

"Then we'll proceed with caution," Carol said. "Not that we wouldn't anyway." She led him around the back of the church and pointed to the fire escape ladder. "We can take that up to the roof, then go down in through the bell tower."

"Who do ya think I am, Tarzan?"

"Chicken." Carol put a booted heel on the first rung of the ladder and began climbing her way up.

He watched her scale the ladder, her lithe form climbing higher and higher, and shook his head. "A'right, Jane!" he called after her. "Wait up."

[*]

Daryl looked down at the long rope leading from the bell between the open beams to the unfinished floor below. There did appear to be a door down there that might get them into the church. "I'll go first," he said. He didn't want her to think he was chicken. "But I ain't done this since 9th grade gym class." He'd stopped going to high school the next year.

"Down is so much easier than up," she replied. "And I  _always_  got to the top of the rope in gym class and rung the bell."

He bet she did. She was stronger than he'd guessed at first, and she didn't have a lot of weight to pull, probably had even less as a teenage girl. The girls had always been better than the boys at rope climbing, anyway. Daryl had always been muscular, but he'd been clumsy in high school, and that rope had swung every which way beneath his weight when he tried to scale it. He could hear the girls snickering on the mats below every time he went up. He'd hated gym, hated all the stupid exercises, the team sports, the coaches screaming in your face.

It wasn't that Daryl didn't love being physical - he was happy to hike for hours, climb hills and rocks, scale trees for a vantage point, swim in the lake - he just didn't see the point of jumping jacks or crunches, of throwing a ball through a hoop or trying to tackle some dumb ass guy before he reached a painted white line in the grass. The only good thing about the rope climbing was that he got to watch from below as the girls shimmied up in their tight little gym shorts. He was sure all of them ordered those shorts two sizes too small just to mess with his mind. He wondered what Carol would look like, going up a rope in nothing but a short, tight pair of... _Jesus_ , he cursed himself.  _Hell's wrong with ya? Focus, man._

Daryl hated it when he caught himself thinking about Carol that way, because he thought she deserved better than some loser's dirty thoughts. She was beautiful and forgiving and quietly strong, always working to serve others without asking for much in return. She was like steel encased in velvet, strong at the core but strangely and wondrously soft to the touch. He wished he'd just kissed her when she'd dared him to, kissed her for real, even if she was just giving him shit. Like a damn fool, he'd let that opportunity slip right between his fingers. He could have done it, enjoyed it, and pretended it was only because she'd dared him to, and not because he'd thought about it before.

"I can go first if you're worried," she told him.

"No! I'll go!" he insisted. He looked up at the bell. "I just ain't sure 'bout ringin' that thing. Might draw the geeks."

"It's badly rusted, Daryl. And you've got to really yank hard and out on that rope to ring it in the first place. If you just go straight down, it'll be fine."

He sat on the wooden ledge of the bell tower, grabbed hold of the rope, and began to lower himself down. The bell did move enough for the clapper to strike the sound bow, but it made more of a dull thud than a ring. When he was at the bottom, he coughed on a cloud of dust.

Daryl looked up to see Carol's boots dangling from the ledge. "You almost lost your crossbow going down," she called to him. "Catch my rifle."

She removed the chambered bullet and the magazine, put them in a pocket of her cargo pants, and then tossed the rifle down to him. He caught it and then propped it against a beam before turning to look back up at her. Carol began to shimmy down the rope. Her light weight swung the clapper a lot less than his mass had, and there wasn't even so much as a thud. But halfway down, she lost her grip and slid rapidly, burning her hands against the rope painfully enough that she let go in the last few feet. Daryl caught her in his arms, held her to his chest for a moment while catching his startled breath, and then set her on her feet.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said.

He took hold of her hands, turned them over, and looked at the bright red burn marks. "Shit."

"Well, at least I got to fall into a man's arms for once in my life." She smiled.

"This ain't the time nor the place to be practicn' yer flirtin', woman."

She looked up at the rusty silver bell and the open beams of the loft area. "Actually, I think it's very romantic."

"C'mon."

He saw her wince as she grabbed her rifle in her raw palm. She pretended not to be in pain as she slid the magazine back in and made sure the rifle was ready to fire.

"Get some aloe on that when we get back to the car," he said. They had a first aid kit in the trunk.

They ended up exiting the bell tower into a dark, windowless hall that led to another door which emptied out into what Carol called "the sacristy." Daryl had no idea what all the fancy church terms were. He just knew it must be the room where the church people put on their robes, because there were a bunch of white robes hanging from a free standing rack in there. "What's with all the scarves?" he asked.

"They're stoles. The deacons and elders wear them."

"Maybe we can snag some wine while we's here," he suggested.

"Methodists use grape juice."

"Well screw them then," he said.

"Thanks a lot. I am one."

"Didn't know that. Thought you was a Baptist."

"Well, Baptists don't use wine either," she informed him. "And why would you think I was Baptist?"

"'Cause it's Georgia."

"Well, I  _grew up_  Methodist anyway. Ed decided we should stop going to church two years after we got married."

"Why?" Daryl asked.

"He said it was because the Reverend was a bad Christian and having an affair with the organist, but I think it was because the man started asking Ed uncomfortable questions about my bruises."

Daryl's back teeth ground against each other, but he didn't say anything.

They exited the sacristy onto the stage. The sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, scattering fuzzy, colored light throughout the sanctuary. Walking through the light was like walking through a bright fog.

They cautiously swept the sanctuary and then made their way out to the foyer. Carol pointed under a display table near the front door. "See! Told you so."

Under the table was a large cardboard box with a printed paper sign that read, "Donations: Happy Lives Crisis Pregnancy Center." Inside were three packages of diapers, four cans of formula, and two boxes of baby wipes.

"Yer a genius," he told her with a smile.

He walked to the front door, unlocked it, and was about to open it so they could take the box outside when she said, "Let's check the church nursery first. They might have some formula, too.

They followed the signs on the walls to the  _Sunday School Wing_. The red plush carpet became tiled hallway. They passed several closed doors, each labeled with a grade range. Daryl came to a sudden stop when he heard a strange noise arise from the door marked "4th and 5th graders."

Carol caught his eyes. "That was a girl's laugh," she said.

He nodded. Daryl leveled his crossbow while Carol flung open the door. A sudden gasp arose from inside.

Light streamed down from three high, non-boarded windows as Daryl entered the room behind Carol. Sitting at a classroom table were two little girls with dirty blonde hair. A toy tea set was arranged between them. The littlest girl tightly gripped the handle of her white flowered cup. She looked from Carol's rifle to Daryl's crossbow and trembled.

The older girl, however, sat calmly with the spout of the tea pot tilted over her open cup, pouring air. She looked straight into Daryl's eyes. "If you're the Mad Hatter come to tea," she said, "you better take a seat. It's getting cold."


	5. Refugees

"Y'all alone here?" Daryl asked them.

"At the moment," the taller girl said.

The little one hissed, "No, Lizzie! Don't tell them!"

Lizzie set the tea pot down on the table. She lay her hands palm down on its surface and looked at her sister. "Mika, let me handle this." She turned her gaze to Daryl. There was something off about her eyes. They looked too old for her face, and there was a jaded light in them. "Our father has lots of guns, and he'll be back any minute now, so you had better not try to hurt us."

Daryl and Carol shoulder their weapons. "We don't want to hurt you, honey," Carol said.

"Where's yer daddy at?" Daryl asked.

"He went to find food," Lizzie replied. "Now are you going to sit down to tea or not?"

Daryl looked at Carol. Carol shrugged. Daryl pulled out a chair from the table next to Mika. It was a small chair, designed for a six to ten year old, and he felt like an awkward giant when he planted his ass on it. Lizzie pretended to pour him a cup of tea and then pushed it over to him.

"Ain't I gonna get any cookies with this?" he asked.

Mika nervously picked up a fake plastic tea cookie. It trembled in her hand as she set it down on his saucer.

"Mhmmm…" he murmured. He picked it up and pretended to chew on it. "How many guns yer daddy have?" he asked.

"More than you," Lizzie said disdainfully. She looked from Carol's rifle to his crossbow. "You only have one."

They had three, actually. He and Carol each had a handgun on their belts concealed by their long button-down shirts, but he didn't tell Lizzie that. "When's he gettin' back?"

"Now," Lizzie said, looking over Carol's shoulder toward the hallway.

Daryl followed her gaze to find a balding, brown-bearded man standing in the door frame. He was leveling a wooden .22 rifle, a bit shakily, at Daryl, his eyes flitting frantically about the scene. He must have returned and found the front door unlocked. Daryl had left it slightly ajar when Carol distracted him with the idea of finding the nursery. Daryl supposed the girls usually let their father back in when he'd been out scavenging.

Daryl slowly raised his hands. He stood, and, hands still raised, turned to face the drawn rifle. "We ain't bad people."

Carol raised her hands as well. "We just came here looking for formula. We have a baby back in our camp."

"Mika, Lizzie," the man ordered. "Get behind me. Now!"

Mika was clearly alarmed by the fear in her father's voice and dashed out of her chair and behind him the hallway. Lizzie was more languid in her rising, and she shot Daryl an  _I-told-you-so_  look as she walked out into the hallway.

"I could shoot you right now," the man said.

"You could," Carol said calmly. "But we both have weapons we can get to quickly. If you shoot one of us, the other one's going to go for a weapon and kill you while you're doing it, and your little girls are going to see two completely unnecessary deaths. Including yours."

"No!" Mika shouted.

"Lower your gun, and let's  _talk_ ," Carol insisted.

The man looked from Carol to Daryl and then back. He let out a shaky breath and lowered his weapon. "So talk," he said.

Carol extended her hand. "I'm Carol."

The man shook cautiously. "Ryan Samuels."

Carol put a hand on Daryl's shoulder. "And this is Daryl Dixon."

Ryan nodded to him, but he also looked him over warily.

"How many are in your camp?" Carol asked.

"We had fourteen when we left Jacksonville," Ryan answered, wrapping one arm around Mika, who had attached herself to his hip.

"Ya come all the way from Florida?" Daryl asked.

"We heard there was a cure at the CDC in Atlanta. But when we got there…it was just gone. The whole things was just...blown up."

Daryl glanced at Carol. That seemed a lifetime ago. Sophia was still alive. So were Lori and Shane, Dale, Andrea, and T-Dog. They drank and laughed and were just starting to hope when it all came to a screeching halt. That's how it was in this world. Just when you began to think you might have a chance...

"Six of our people were killed on the way from Florida. The rest when we were trying to get out of Atlanta. Me and the girls…we're all that's left."

"How many walkers have ya killed?" Daryl asked.

"How many what?" Ryan asked.

"Walkers," Daryl repeated.

"What the hell is a walker?"

"You know, these things that are lurchin' 'round all over the damn place?"

"Oh. We call them the Diseased."

"Well, how many of the Diseased have ya killed?" Daryl asked.

"Me personally, or our group?"

Daryl was getting irritated. "You personally."

"I don't know. Five maybe. We just try to avoid them most of the time."

"You shouldn't hurt them if you don't have to," Lizzie insisted.

"Shh!" her father told her, and Lizzie leaned against the frame of the open doorway.

Daryl looked at the girl curiously. What had she meant by that? Probably that it was better to avoid them so you didn't get bit or killed trying to kill them, and that probably was the best course for a girl her size and age. It wasn't as if Sophia had gone around stabbing walkers...though, then again, if she had, she might still be alive. Daryl returned his attention to Ryan. "How many people have you killed?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"Because we want to get to know you," Carol said.

"That's a strange way of getting to know someone," Ryan replied. 

"How many people have you killed?" Daryl repeated.

Ryan turned. "Girls, go wait down the hall a little ways." The girls retreated. Ryan turned back. In a low voice he said, "One."

"Why?" Daryl asked.

"Because he was caught raping a woman in our camp. He was one of ours, had been with us since Jacksonville, but we all decided...we had a trial of sorts. We agreed...he was a threat, and he had to go."

"And why was you the one chosen to execute 'em?" Daryl asked.

Ryan looked down at the floor at gritted his teeth.

"'Cause it was yer wife?"

Ryan swallowed. "She took to drinking, my wife...after that. She stumbled out of the camp one night. Got set on by the Diseased. And we lost her."

Carol took in a shaky breath, and Daryl caught her eyes. She nodded to him.

"We got a place," Daryl said. "A prison. Secure. Gated up. Lots of people. Other kids, too. Some stored food. We's even growin' some crops now. Ya want to come back with us?"

[*]

The trunk was already nearly full from the items they'd found in the pantry, so they began loading things in the back seat. They'd pillaged the church of anything useful, and a few things that weren't. Daryl had snagged a pacifier, two rattles, a teddy bear, a stuffed rabbit, a play mat, and a bouncy seat.

"Don't you think you're going a little overboard?" Carol asked him as he crammed it all in the back seat.

"Little Ass Kicker deserves some toys," he insisted. "Promised her Uncle Daryl'd bring her somethin'."

Carol smiled.

Next, Daryl helped Ryan load the trunk of his own car. The girls slid into the backseat of their gray sedan while Daryl closed the trunk and turned to Ryan. "That all yer shit?" he asked. "Where's the other guns?"

"What guns?" Ryan replied, nodding to the rifle on his shoulder. "This is my only gun."

Daryl glanced at Lizzie through the rear windshield. "Yer daughter's got quite the poker face," Daryl told him. "Had me convinced ya had more."

"Yeah, well, that's Lizzie. She's hard to read." Ryan smiled a strange, sad smile that made Daryl shoot another look at Lizzie.

"Y'all stay close," he told Ryan. "And flash yer lights if yer fixin' to stop for any reason."

[*]

"Those girls are adorable." Carol glanced in the rearview mirror as she drove.

Daryl had the passenger's seat popped all the way back so he could stretch his legs. "Yeah, but there's somethin' off 'bout that Lizzie, don't ya think?"

"She's outlived eleven members of her camp, including her own mother. Of course there's something off about her. There's something off about all of us."

"Weren't even scared of me when I walked in that room. Asked me to sit for tea."

"I'll need to teach her to be more cautious, that's for sure," Carol said.

"Is that what ya do durin' story time? Teach the kids to be more  _cautious_?"

She shot him a surprised look.

"Patrick told me, 'bout how ya train 'em."

"Don't tell Rick."

"Why ya care so much what  _Rick_  thinks of you?" he asked, a little peevishly.

"I don't. It's just...he's been living in fairy land lately. He thinks he's a farmer now. He thinks we can just...lay down roots."

"And ya don't?" Daryl asked.

Carol glanced at him quickly and then returned her eyes to the road. "Do  _you_?"

"I think yer right to train them kids. They need to know how to survive. There's always gonna be threats. But I think Rick's right to farm too. This prison's the most secure place we been yet. Hell, it's the longest I've stayed in one place in years." It was also the only place he'd ever felt like he was respected.

"I didn't say he was wrong to farm. We need food. I just think he's gone a bit soft. If he knew I was teaching the little ones to kill, he might object."

"Rick ain't a dumb ass. Ya know, he's smart  _and_  well-toned."

Carol chuckled. "I really  _don't_  have a secret crush on Rick."

"Good," he said, and realize that might have made him sound possessive. "Because, uh...think Michonne might."

"Well I certainly wouldn't want to compete with Michonne for a man's affections." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'd lose that fight for sure."

"Why?"

She laughed and shook her head.

He glanced in the rear view mirror to check on Ryan's car. In the back seat, Mika appeared to be singing, while Lizzie was rolling her eyes. "Why?" he repeated.

"Because she's gorgeous and strong and self-confident and..." Carol shrugged.

"Yer plenty pretty and strong."

"You think so?" she asked.

How could Carol not know these things about herself? "Course."

She smiled, that little smile that always made the moths flutter in his stomach, just one side of her mouth, a little happy, a little sad.

In the rear view mirror, Ryan's high beams flashed on and off. Carol slowed the car to the stop. A foggy cloud of gray smoke rose from the engine of Ryan's car.

"Shit," Daryl muttered.

They siphoned off his gas into their car, abandoned the bouncy seat at the side of the road, rearranged the items in the trunk, strapped some things to the roof, and piled Ryan and the girls into the backseat before driving on.

[*]

 

 

Daryl introduced Ryan and the girls to Rick and then led them to a cell. "I'll bring in another mattress for y'all." There was just the two bunk beds, but he figured Ryan would want them to stick together. Daryl sure as hell would, if he had daughters to protect.

"It's so small," Mika complained.

"Well, we're only going to sleep here," her father told her. "There's lots of room in the prison, and there's a library, and outside there's a canteen and you can go visit the pig."

"I liked the church better," Lizzie said. "It wasn't so dank. And we slept in a really big room."

"It's better to be here," Ryan assured them. "There's lots of food, and running water, and other people. There's safety in numbers. I won't have to leave you locked in alone to go looking for food anymore."

"Well…uh…y'all start gettin' settled," Daryl said, "and I'll go get ya that other mattress."

He walked down to Beth's cell, because he knew she was bunking alone and would have an extra mattress. Zach wasn't bunking with her, but they were probably fooling around from time to time. Daryl didn't know how Hershel handled that. That man was so mild. If Daryl had a teenage girl, he'd be keeping a suspicious eye on any boy who talked to her. Beth wasn't even his, and he was already keeping a suspicious eye on Zach. But the truth was, Zach was all right. He seemed respectful enough. He was friendly without being too annoying.

Daryl leaned against the metal edge of the open cell door and cleared his throat. Beth was sitting at her little desk and writing in her journal. He wondered what she wrote in there. All her feelings about Zach, probably. Maybe song lyrics. She turned and smiled. She always had a pretty, friendly smile for him that made him feel like a welcomed big brother. It was strange, feeling so welcomed by someone so innocent, someone who, in the old world, should have been terrified by him.

"Need a mattress," he said. "We got new refugees."

"Oh yeah?" she asked. "Any cute guys?'

"Hmph. Ya got a boyfriend."

"Just because you're on a diet…" she said, and lay her pen down. She stood and slid her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. When she did, he noticed to her left a white sign board propped up on a stand. It read:  _The Workplace. 24 days without an accident._  The numbers were removable.

"What's that 'bout?" he asked.

Beth glanced at the board. "Oh, I found it in the warden's office. Just thought it would be fun. I started it twenty-eight days ago, but a few days in, I had to reset it. One of the cleaners got a little too close to the fence and got his pinky bit. Daddy had to amputate it."

"Dumb ass," Daryl muttered.

"Don't be mean," she said softly.

Daryl hated when she scolded him like that, hated it because she was probably right, he probably shouldn't go around calling people dumb asses just because they  _were_ dumb asses. It wasn't nice. And Beth was nice. She was sweetness and light, and sometimes that annoyed the ever living shit out of him. And sometimes…sometimes it made him think that maybe they all had a chance to do more than just survive. Maybe Carl had a chance to grow up to become a man and a farmer, and maybe Little Ass Kicker had a chance to become a pretty teenager like Beth, and maybe Beth had a chance to one day marry Zach and make babies with him, and maybe he and Carol had a chance to…well, he wouldn't let his mind go there. He'd already been given more than he'd ever dared hope for from Carol – friendship, forgiveness, trust, and affection. He wasn't going to jinx that by wishing for more.

"Need that mattress," he said.

She nodded to the bunk. "Help yourself. You'll have to get the sheets from the laundry room."

"Sure Carol'll make it up for 'em."

"You know, you could make it up for them," Beth said. "Instead of making Carol do all the menial work."

"Ain't nothin' menial 'bout any of the work Carol does."

"I wasn't belittling her," Beth insisted. "That's not what I meant. We all need Carol. Just like we all need you."

Needed him? He couldn't think of any other time in his life when so many people had thought they  _needed_ him. He felt a little overwhelmed by the thought, the thought of  _mattering_ to people. He pushed himself off of the bars where he was leaning and grabbed hold of the mattress.

[*]

Carol was making up the top bed of the bunk in Ryan's cell when she heard a noise and looked over to see Daryl dragging the mattress in. He lay the mattress on the ground perpendicular to the bunks to allow room for getting in and out. "Where they at?" he asked.

"Went to the canteen to get a hot meal. Patrick's frying up some Spam for lunch."

"Bet he don't make it like you do."

She chuckled as she slid a pillow case over a thin pillow. She appreciated the compliment, even if it was a little silly. "There's only so much you can do with Spam." She lay the pillow on the bed and smoothed out the sheets.

Carol felt another presence and turned to see one of Michonne's dark hands gripping a thick bar of the cell. Michonne nodded to her and Carol nodded back. Carol had nothing against Michonne, but she still didn't feel like she really knew the woman. Michonne wasn't quite part of the nuclear family yet – the core circle of trust - as far as Carol was concerned, but Daryl seemed to treat her as though she was. Carol was willing to trust his judgment on the matter, assuming that judgment wasn't clouded by his attraction to the woman.

"Yer still here?" Daryl asked.

"Headed out after lunch," Michonne replied. "Just needed a couple of days to rest up and study the routes. I've been looking at the map. We haven't checked out Peachtree City yet."

"It ain't even clear he headed east."

"Well, I figure it's worth a try."

Carol busied herself with making up the bed on the bottom bunk and tried not to sneak glances at them as they talked. Daryl put a hand on the bar to the left of the one Michonne was gripping. Their hands were awfully close together. "Don't like the idea of you goin' out there alone, no backup."

Michonne flashed her pearly whites. "Then come with me, cowboy."

 _Cowboy?_  Carol thought. _Cowboy?_  What the hell was that? Cowboy was what you called a man you wanted to fuck. She snapped the sheet out violently on top of the mattress. The sound was distinguishable enough that Daryl and Michonne both glanced at her. Carol pretended not to notice and began roughly tucking the sheet in under the mattress.

"Cain't," Daryl said. "We's almost out of canned meat. These kids need protein. Got to go huntin' tomorrow. I'm the only one who's really good at it. I just don't think you should go. Stay here for once. Help out  _here_. Ya'd make a hell of a cleaner."

"I can't," she said. "You know I can't."

"Let it go," Daryl insisted. He leaned a little closer, too close for Carol's comfort, and lowered his voice. "I know how angry ya are. Asshole killed my  _brother_ , and believe me…I'd love to find him and slit his throat. But this thirst for revenge'll eat ya alive."

"It's not about revenge," Michonne insisted. "I'm telling you, he's regrouping. He's plotting. He  _will_  come after us."

"Yeah, well, we'll be ready if'n he does."

Michonne pushed off the bar and shook her head. "Goodbye, Carol," she said. "Thanks for all the food you two brought back. Rick said I could take some for the road."

Carol stood up straight and turned to face her. "Good luck to you," she said.

Michonne nodded to Daryl and then strutted down the hall. He rubbed his temple. "Hope she comes back alive," he muttered.

"She's important to you," Carol said quietly.

He turned and looked at her. "I ain't never had a lot of friends," he said. "The one's I got, they's _all_ important to me." He looked right into her eyes when he said that, like he was trying to make a point he couldn't put into words.

Carol smiled and went back to making the bed.


	6. Daryl's First Birthday

As Carol made her way toward Daryl's cell, she passed Beth's and saw the girl's workplace sign: 26 Days without an accident. Beth smiled, said hello, and then lowered her privacy curtain for the night. Carol had made a sturdy curtain for every cell from sheets, blankets, shower curtains, and other such materials.

Daryl was sitting barefoot on his bunk in his brown muscle shirt and pants, cleaning the caked-on blood off the tips of his arrows with a rag and rubbing alcohol.

He looked up and through the bars – he didn't have his privacy curtain down – and his eyes fell on the plate she was holding. On top of it rested a small square of yellow, spongey cake. In the center she'd put a blue and white candle.

"Happy Birthday!" she cried cheerfully.

He tilted his head down and smiled.

"Everyone should have birthday cake at least once in their lives." She came inside, reached into her pants pocket, pulled out a lighter, and lit the candle. "Want me to sing Happy Birthday?"

"Don't."

"You at least have to blow out your candle," she insisted.

"I'm turnin' one?"

"It's about time."

Daryl leaned forward and blew. The flame flickered and died. He shoved the arrow he was holding in his quiver and took the plate from her hands. "How'd ya bake it?"

Their food was usually cooked on the coal grill in the canteen or on kerosene camp stoves. While they had intermittent power in some areas from generators, they were unable to use the prison ovens. "I took a toy Easy Bake Oven from one of the Sunday School classrooms back at that church. It still had mixes and decorating gel. The oven uses a light bulb to bake. I always wanted one when I was a little girl."

She took the chair out from under his corner desk and noted with curiosity the contents of his desktop – a black sharpie, a yellow highlighter, a pencil, two maps that had been marked up with his notes about good and bad hunting grounds, and a stack of three, dog-eared paperback novels by Louis L'Amour.

"You like westerns?" she asked as she turned the chair to face him and sat down.

He'd taken the candle out of the cake and was examining the top. She'd written Happy B-day in flowery cursive with red decorating gel, because there hadn't been room to spell out the entire word birthday.

"They's a'right, I guess. Ain't too long. No pictures though."

"Don't play dumb," Carol insisted. "My mother taught me to do that. She said no man would ever want me if I acted too big for my britches. And look who I ended up married to."

"My mama used to say that. Anytime anyone in the extended family'd leave and make somethin' of 'emselves - they's gettin' too big for their britches."

"Did you have a big extended family?"

"My mama had two sisters and two half-brothers. My daddy had two brothers and three half-sisters. And I had a shitload of cousins. Couple of my aunts moved outta them backwoods, and maybe three of my cousins, but most of 'em stayed. Hell, the Dixons and Clarks might still be livin' deep in them woods for all I know. Me and Merle was gonna go back and check eventually." He picked up the piece of cake she'd brought him.

"Wow. A niece and a gaggle of cousins. You've got a lot of DNA that could still be running around out there."

"Mhm. But I guess DNA don't make a family." Daryl took a bite of the cake, which, given its small size, meant he consumed half the square. He murmured his approval, and when he was done eating the entire thing, he licked his fingers, one by one by one, making a low Mmmmmm sound while he did so.

Carol had to look away for a moment. When it sounded like he was done licking, she turned back. "What do you mean by that?"

"That maybe you was right. Merle was my brother, but he weren't good for me. Think maybe the closest thing to family I ever had...it's right here. 'Tween these prison walls."

Carol felt a tender mix of sympathy and happiness at his self-discovery. On the one hand, she was glad he was beginning to see this hodge podge of co-survivors as his family, but on the other, she was sad that he'd never before experienced the kind of respect or affection that made him feel like he was part of a family.

"Thanks," he said. "Best cake I ever et."

"I doubt that. And it wasn't exactly my recipe. Do you really not know when your birthday is?"

"March sometime. Learned that when I got my license. Had to go down to the court house to get my birth certificate 'fore I could get it. Don't recall the exact day or year."

He stood, walked over, and set the plate down on the desk.

"Want to play some more truth or dare?" she asked.

He grunted.

"Please? I'm not tired enough for bed yet, and all the women I usually talk to have already pulled down their privacy curtains."

"You and yer damn games."

"Did you have something better to do?"

He sat back down on his bed on the bottom bunk, facing her. It squeaked. "Fine. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," she said.

"How're yer hands doin' with that rope burn?"

"They're fine now." She turned her palms out to show him that the flesh color was coming back. "I just kept putting aloe on them. But that's a really boring truth question. Truth or dare?"

"I ain't doin' any dares tonight. Too many people. Someone might see me."

"You're no fun."

"For all I know, ya'll dare me to streak down the cell block."

"That was my plan," she said with a light smile.

"Ain't like ya'd take that dare neither."

"Probably not," she admitted. "So you want a truth then?"

"A'right." He snatched an arrow out of his quiver, she thought, just so he'd have something to fiddle with.

"Do you go to sleep in your pants even when no one's around?"

"Yep," he answered.

"Why?"

"Well, what if some shit goes down in the middle of the night? Ain't got time to put my pants on."

"What about your leather jacket, though? You don't sleep in that."

"Ain't got to put that on if the shit hits the fan. It don't actually give me superpowers."

Carol chuckled. "Well, you do look good in leather."

Daryl ducked his head. "Stop."

"My turn."

He looked back up at her. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Hmmm…" He turned the arrow over and tapped his lips with the tail. "Dare ya to sneak up on Glenn and scare 'em."

"No. I'll get killed!"

"Oh. Yeah. Ya's probably right. Then I dare ya to go bake me another piece of cake."

"There's only two mixes left, and I gave the oven to Mika and Lizzie. You're terrible at this game."

He shrugged. "I ain't a schoolgirl. These ain't the kind of games I played growin' up."

"What games did you play?" she asked.

"That my truth?"

"We aren't playing truth or dare anymore. We're just talking now."

He put his bare foot up on his knee and scratched his ankle with the tail of the arrow. "Well, mostly just wrestled or boxed with my cousins. Had plinkin' contests with our .22s. Raced bikes."

"Bicycles or motorcycles?"

"Bicycles 'til I's eleven. Then motorcycles."

"You got your first motorcycle when you were eleven?"

"Used Merle's. He was in juvie then, so he didn't exactly miss it. Then he signed up with the army later, so…I had his bike 'til he got discharged."

"Were you even tall enough to ride when you were eleven?" Carol was trying to picture a child-sized Daryl. She couldn't imagine him as a young boy.

"Couldn't do it flat footed, but I managed on my toes."

"Did you win?"

"Not often. I's the youngest."

Silence descended between them for a while as he looked down and toyed with his arrow. Carol was thinking they needed a game to talk. Daryl didn't speak unless he had a reason to speak. A game gave him that reason. "Why don't we do a round of two truths and a lie before bed?"

He sighed, but he didn't refuse. "A'right. Ya first."

"I once snuck into an R rated movie when I was 15."

Daryl snorted.

"What's so funny?"

"Just…ya say it like it was real naughty."

"Well, it was a big deal for me. I always towed the line."

"So that one's true."

"You tricked me!" she complained. "Now I have to start over. Let's see…my favorite children's book was Harold and the Purple Crayon. My favorite class in high school was Home Ec. And I used to secretly water down Ed's whiskey so he wouldn't spend so much money on drinking."

Daryl's brow furrowed. "Well, the Home Ec one's gotta be true. Don't matter how much you water down the whiskey. Man needs as much as a man needs to get drunk, so…don't know why ya'd do that. Guess the Crayon one."

She shook her head. "I thought it would save at least a little money," she said. "And we were in so much debt. I was desperate to save money. The Home Ec class was the lie."

"What?" Daryl's voice rose with disbelief.

"It was so boring because I already knew how to do everything better than the teacher."

Daryl nodded and smiled. She waited for him to take his turn, giving him an expectant look.

He studied his arrow for a while, turning it back and forth in his hand, until he finally said, "Cain't think of anythin'."

Carol sighed. "Fine. I'll leave you alone. I suppose I've tried your patience long enough." She stood up, but when she was at the cell door, he called her name. She turned.

"Thanks again for the cake."

She smiled. "You're welcome. You have a goodnight." She reached her hand up over the doorway to the cell. "Do you want me to put this curtain down?" She'd made him one that was entirely brown. She was afraid if it had anything decorative at all, he'd grumble.

"Mhmm."

Carol yanked it down on her way out, and it billowed lightly behind her as she made her way back to her own cell.


	7. Movie Night

Carol was feeling pleasantly satisfied. Daryl had brought back a deer this afternoon, and for once, they hadn't needed to walk away from dinner slightly hungry just to make sure the food stretched to feed everyone. After showering in the women's room - they didn't have a functioning water heater, but they still had running water, and showers were short and cold - she toweled off and pulled on her underwear, tank top, and athletic shorts. With a little water still dripping from her hair, she made her way past the cells. She said goodnight to Lizzie and Mika and was rewarded with a big smile from the youngest girl, who was lying on her stomach on the mattress on the floor and drawing pictures on a sketch pad.

Carol passed several other cells before coming upon Beth's. The teenager was writing in her journal again, and the sign she'd brought in from the warden's office read: 29 days without an accident. "Are you going to switch that over?"

"I do it in the morning," Beth told her.

Carol smiled and told her goodnight. Once in her own cell, she lowered the privacy curtain, switched on her lamp, picked up her heavy paperback book, and settled onto her bunk to read. She'd made it about two pages in when she heard the sound of a throat clearing near the door to her cell. "Come in, Daryl," she called, knowing instantly it was him. He was the only one who announced himself that way.

The privacy curtain fluttered back from the open entryway to the cell, and he crept inside. No matter how many times he entered her cell, he always did it in that same quiet, shuffling, hesitant way, casting his eyes to the ground. Carol looked at his hand, which was pressed strangely against his leather vest over a lump. "What do you have in there?"

"Gift," he said. "Still got that portable DVD player?"

"Yeah," she answered, smiling with surprise and curiosity.

He slid his other hand into his vest and pulled out a DVD case and handed it to her. On the front was a smiling Audrey Hepburn, with her arms wrapped around a well dressed Gregory Peck as they rode a scooter through the streets of Rome. "My favorite!" she exclaimed. She'd told him that during their game of two truths and a lie on the prison tower.

"Mhmhm. That's why I brought it to ya."

She tossed her book aside on the nightstand, got down on her haunches, yanked a cardboard box out from under her bed, and rummaged through it. She stood with the portable DVD player in her hand. "Where'd you find it?"

"Warden's office. Bunch of DVDs in there. Guess they used to show 'em to the prisoners in the common room."

"I can't imagine a bunch of hardened criminals watching Roman Holiday," she said.

He took a step back toward the cell door. "You...uh...enjoy."

"Aren't you going to stay and watch it with me?"

He shifted on his feet.

"Romantic movie night," she teased with a smile.

"Stop."

"Come on. Movies are no fun to watch alone. And when was the last time you saw one?"

She expected another protest and another round of pleading before he agreed, but he surprised her by immediately saying, "A'right. I'll go get the popcorn."

"Popcorn?" she asked, but he'd already vanished.

When he returned with a camp stove and one of those Jiffy Pop aluminum pan things, she realized he'd been planning to join her all along. "Where'd you score the Jiffy Pop?" she asked as he began to ignite the stove.

"Was in that pantry at that house."

"I didn't see it. You must have packed that box." Carol's mouth watered at the thought of hot, oily popcorn. She couldn't remember the last time she'd tasted freshly popped corn. She centered a nightstand in front of her bunk, set the DVD player on it, and loaded the movie while Daryl lit the stove and got the popcorn going.

She'd just gotten past the opening credits and pressed pause to wait for him to finish and join her when Tyreese, handgun drawn and eyes wide with alarm, burst into her cell. He glanced at the Jiffy Pop, which was now beginning to slow between pops, and lowered his gun. "Christ, man!" Tyreese half yelled at Daryl. "Warn a guy when you're popping that shit, why don't you?" He then looked straight at Carol. "Sorry, ma'am, for my language."

Carol laughed. She knew why he'd apologized. They'd broth grown up in families where it was considered crass for a man to swear in front of a woman, but that all seemed so silly now, here in the trenches of a post-apocalyptic world.

"I thought it was gunshots," Tyreese said.

Daryl turned off the stove, took the now popped corn off its top, and stood. "That'd be some damn strange soundin' gunshots," he muttered. "Maybe ya oughta get yer ears checked."

"Sorry," Tyreese apologized, but as he stepped back, he looked from the popcorn to the DVD player. "Where'd you get all that?"

"Ain't yours," Daryl said.

"Daryl," Carol scolded.

"Well it ain't."

"I'll be happy to lend you the DVD player tomorrow if you'd like to watch a movie with Karen," Carol told him.

"Thanks," he said, and holstered his gun. He nodded to her and then to Daryl. "Goodnight."

When Tyreese was gone, Carol teased, "Aww, Pookie, were you afraid he was going to try to stay and ruin our romantic date night?"

Daryl grunted. Holding the Jiffy Pop by its handle, he tried to peel back the aluminum cover and singed his fingers. He shoved them quickly in his mouth and sucked.

"Wait for it to cool, Einstein," Carol told him.

She eased down on her bunk and then scooted back until she was leaning against the wall. Daryl plopped down next to her, and the bed creaked and shifted. His shoulder was an inch from hers against the wall. He was still sucking on the fingers of his one hand while holding the Jiffy Pop handle in the other. She leaned forward and pressed play.

A few minutes into the movie, Daryl risked opening the lid. The delicious scent of oil and corn tickled Carol's nostrils. "One at a time," she insisted. "We have to savor this."

"Ain't nobody eats popcorn one at a time."

"Well we do tonight. You made me chug the wine. You're going to let me savor this."

He shook his head, but then he plucked one piece from the tin. After every piece he ate, he would lick his fingers. Carol tried to keep her eyes on the movie, but she kept glancing at him as those long fingers slid in and out of his mouth. She also looked at him every time he chuckled, low and manfully, at something in the movie. It wasn't often Carol go to see Daryl amused.

Despite her plan to savor the popcorn, she ended up switching from one kernel at a time to two and then three, and it disappeared too quickly. They had already finished the Jiffy Pop by the time they reached the scene where a woozy Audrey Hepburn appropriates Gregory Peck's bed and he, frustrated, transfers her to the couch.

"Dumb ass," Daryl muttered. "Wouldn't kick her out my bed."

Carol laughed. "Yeah? You like Audrey Hepburn, do you?"

"Hell yeah," he said. "Like the short hair. It's sexy."

Was Daryl actually flirting with her? Carol touched the back of her own short hair gently. He didn't seem to notice her doing so, and she decided he hadn't been connecting the two. Carol dropped her hand back to the bed. "Well, I think Gregory Peck's sexy."

"'Cause ya like a clean-cut man? Suit, neat hair, all that?"

"No. Because I like a man with a deep, sexy voice."

Daryl didn't say stop. He didn't react at all. Maybe he was not aware that he had a deep, sexy voice.

As the movie wore on, Daryl kicked off his boots, peeled off his socks, and shoved them inside. He also shed his leather jacket and draped it over the edge of the bunk.

"Make yourself at home," she joked, secretly pleased that he was making himself at home.

"Well, yer practically in yer skivvies."

Carol slid a little closer to him and, ever so cautiously, tilted her head toward him. He was once again wearing that brown shirt of his, with the sleeves jaggedly cut off. When her head touched his bare shoulder, he flinched instinctively but then quickly stilled. Daryl glanced down at her head on his shoulder but didn't say anything about it, so she left it there.

A few minutes later, he shifted slightly and she felt something poking her in the hip. "Is that a gun, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Sorry," Daryl muttered. He stood, unclipped his handgun, knife, and flashlight from his belt, and set them on her cell floor before sitting down next to her again. She settled her head right back on his shoulder. He didn't protest.

They were now at the scene where the characters were scootering around town. Daryl nodded to the Vespa on the screen. "Gayest motorcycle I ever saw."

"I think it's cute," Carol said, raising her head from off his shoulder. She wished he'd put his arm around her so she could settle in more comfortably against him. "I'm cold," she hinted.

"How in the hell are ya cold? It's back up over eighty now."

Carol sighed. Apparently she couldn't flirt worth shit. "I want you to put your arm around me," she said bluntly, more out of irritation than anything else. Once it was out, it was too late to take it back, and she'd said it too forthrightly to play it off as a joke. So she tried to downplay it: "It would just be more comfortable. This bunk is kind of cramped."

"Uh…a'right." He put his arm awkwardly around her shoulders, like a thirteen-year-old boy on his first date at the movies. She cuddled up against him. He stared intensely at the screen, as if he was afraid that if he looked at her she might ask for something else. Daryl's arm was so stiff around her, that eventually she just slid away from him and leaned back against the wall again. His arm dropped to the bed between them.

"That ain't what ya wanted?" he asked, sounding shy and uncertain, and it suddenly occurred to her that maybe he wasn't so rigid because he hadn't wanted to touch her. Maybe he simply had no idea how to touch her.

She looked at him sitting there, his muscles tense and self-protective but his eyes worried and eager to please. She thought about how he'd said he'd run away from home repeatedly and spent weeks alone in the woods, how he'd dropped out of high school at fifteen, how he'd drifted from town to town with Merle. She thought about how much time he'd spent alone or with no one other than his brother, and about how often he flinched when anyone touched him. She thought, too, of how hastily he'd answered her truth or dare question about when he had lost his virginity, and of how it had seemed like he was lying.

Carol didn't mean to say it out loud, but somehow the words just slipped out of her mouth: "You're a virgin, aren't you?"


	8. Chapter 8

Beth crept into Carol's cell, her blue eye's round and wide as a startled doe's, her mouth partly agape. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I heard a crash or something." She looked at the DVD player on the ground. The screen was half snapped off and dangled by a wire thread.

"I'm fine," Carol insisted. "I got up to get something, and I just...silly me...I stumbled against the table the DVD player was on and knocked it over. It must have been cheaply made, it broke so easily." She smiled. "But I'm just fine. Thanks for checking up on me."

Beth looked from the DVD player to Carol and back to the DVD player. "Well, I'm sorry it broke."

"My fault for being so clumsy," Carol said and kept smiling until Beth had disappeared.

Her fake smile faded into a grimace, and she was suddenly disgusted with herself. How easily and completely she had slipped back into the abused wife routine, lying to cover up what had really happened. When she'd suggested Daryl was a virgin, he'd growled, low and angry, "Yer nosy as hell, ya know that?" Then he'd stood straight up and violently swept his arm against the portable DVD player, so that it went soaring across the cell, where it smashed into the bars, slammed on the ground, and fell apart. Then he'd simply walked out.

_How dare he._

How dare he smash her player in anger, and leave her trembling in this cell. How dare he put her back in that tense place she'd escaped when she'd escaped Ed's unpredictable rages.

_And how dare she._

How dare she act like nothing had happened. How dare she lie to cover for him. She wasn't that woman anymore. She wasn't weak. She would  _never_  be weak again.

Carol stormed toward Daryl's cell. He wasn't there, but Hershel, who had been reading a medical book in his open cell, said, "If you're looking for Daryl, I saw him head toward the mess hall."

[*]

Daryl paced the length of the mess hall, trying to gain control of himself. There were lots of windows in this room, even if covered on the outside by bars, so enough moonlight and starlight filtered in to light his way as his bare feet padded against the cool cement floor. He'd left his boots on Carol's floor. And his gun and knife and flashlight. And her shattered DVD player.

_Fuck._  Why had he done that? What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn't a man. He was a tantrum-throwing child. He wasn't a man at all...and now she knew.

He swiveled when he reached the end of the mess hall and began pacing back, which was when he saw Carol. She was coming at him full speed, more livid than he'd ever seen her. Hands open and palms flat, she shoved him hard against his brick of a chest. Shocked, he stumbled backwards three steps and rammed his upper leg against a table.

"You don't get to treat me like that!" Her voice cracked, breaking in an instant from anger to sorrow. "No one gets to treat me like that anymore! No one!" And now she was sobbing, in a way he hadn't seen her sob since Sophia lurched out of that barn.

The same surprising instinct overtook him that had overtaken him back then. He put his arms around her. This time, he didn't need to hold her back. He held her in.

Carol bent her head against his chest and wept into his shirt. Daryl held her until she'd stopped crying, and then he reached into his back pocket to offer her his red bandanna.

"Sorry I shoved you," she said as she dabbed her eyes.

"'S a'right. I deserve it."

"Don't say that." She handed him back his bandanna, which he returned to his pocket. "That's what I used to tell myself.  _No one_  deserves it."

"Didn't hurt none," he insisted, even though hitting the table had hurt.

"I shouldn't have done it. I lost control. I..." Carol sighed shakily. She put a hand on the table to steady herself, and then she turned and sat on it. He sat down beside her, careful not to touch her. Carol told him about how she had lied to Beth, about how she had despised herself for slipping back into the habit of covering up for Ed's rages.

"I ain't Ed," he whispered, terrified that she might think of him as no different than that piece of shit. "I'd never hurt ya, Carol. Never."

"Well, you  _did_  hurt me. Not physically, but you  _scared_  me. And you broke my DVD player. I'll never be able to finish that movie now."

"Get ya another one," he said softly. When she didn't reply, he said, "'M sorry."

"That's what Ed always said, every time."

"I ain't Ed!"

"No, you're not Ed," she agreed. "But I'm not Carol  _Peletier_  anymore either. You  _can't_  treat me like that, Daryl. You can't just smash my things because I ask you a question you don't like. Even if it was a rude and thoughtless question."

She hadn't reacted like this when he'd thrown that saddle in Hershel's barn, or when he'd gotten up right in her face by his tent and said those nasty things to her. She'd been so...calm. So forgiving. But she expected more of him now. He didn't have infinite chances with her.

"I..." He was going to say he hadn't meant to do it, but Ed had probably said that to her a thousand times. He put a hand down on either side of himself and gripped the wood of the table tightly. Maybe his only chance with her was honesty. "I think I did that 'cause I's embarrassed. I didn't want ya to know. I didn't want ya to guess. Please don't tell no one."

"Of course not."

"Promise."

"Daryl, why would I tell anyone that? Why - "

" _Promise._ "

"I promise." She put her hand on top of his and said, "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

He slid his hand out from underneath hers. "Like hell it ain't. I'm a grown man." He shook his head. "Merle used to ride me so damn hard 'bout it - ya gotta bust that cherry, Daryl, yer a goddamn embarrassment to the Dixon name, what the hell are ya waitin' for? When I's nineteen, he finally just took me to a whorehouse."  _Shit._  Why had he told her that? "Didn't go through with it!"

"Why not?" she asked.

"It just felt...weird. They lined 'em all up, like they was horses at auction or somethin', and I was supposed to look 'em over and...it didn't feel right. So I just picked one, quick as I could. And she took me back to some room. Room smelled strange. Kind of made my stomach churn. I just stood there...didn't know where I's s'posed to start. So I told her she didn't have to do nothin', and I'd pay her extra, on top of whatever Merle was payin' her, if she told him I's the best damn ride of her life."

Carol smiled faintly. "Did Merle believe it?"

"Think so, 'cause after that, he mostly left me alone 'bout it. When we was roamin', if he picked up a woman at a bar and went home with her, next mornin'...I'd make up some story, tell him I'd done the same thing, even though I'd just camped out somewhere alone." Daryl couldn't believe he'd told her all this. "I ain't gay or nothin', if that's what ya think."

"I've never thought that."

"I just...I never knew what to do. Merle always seemed to know."

"Merle was in juvenile detention," Carol told him, "and in the military. As feral as he was...he moved in social groups more than you ever did. Your mother didn't die until he was a teenager, but you were just a boy. You were practically alone, especially with all that time you spent hiding out in the woods from your father. You aren't used to a loving touch. You had to raise yourself, and you never stayed in one place for long. You just never had the chance to - "

"- Don't make excuses for me."

"Daryl, it's not shameful."

He looked down at the mess hall floor. Carol slid off the table and turned to face him. She took a step closer, so that she was standing between his legs, her body flush against the edge of the table he was sitting on. She bent her neck and pressed her forehead to his. It was an unexpected relief to have her so physically close after exposing himself like that, as if she were a cover to his nakedness.

"I'm sorry we fought," she said softly.

"Me too," he whispered, and put a hand on each of her hips, because it seemed to make sense, somehow, to do that.

They remained together for a long time in that position, Daryl sitting on the table, her standing between his legs, hands on each other's hips, foreheads pressed together, lips inches apart. In the silence of the mess hall, Daryl could hear her breathing. He could almost hear his own heart beating. He shifted his head just a little and kissed her. It was so natural…so seamless…the way his lips fell on hers. She closed her eyes. The kiss that began on her lips trailed to her cheek, her nose, her forehead, and back to her lips. She opened her mouth against his. He accepted the invitation and slipped his tongue hesitantly inside, but she responded, and he wasn't hesitant for long.

When Carol finally pulled away, they were both breathing heavily. She held onto the sides of his shirt, the fabric now balled in each of her fists.

He'd been afraid of losing her friendship when she barged in screaming at him, but he was even more afraid of losing it now. If they kept going down this road, he was sure he would disappoint her. "Don't want to ruin it," he said. "Yer the best damn friend I ever had in my life. No one ever gave a shit 'bout me the way ya do."

Carol moved back one step, though she didn't let go of the shirt at his waist. She studied his eyes, her bottom lip sucked in, her own eyes lit by a bitter-sweet smile. "I know," she whispered. "I understand." She unclenched her fists. The fabric of his shirt slipped from her fingers.

She let him go.

Stepped away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and left him there, sitting alone in the moonlight.

[*]

Daryl walked under the shaded tarp of the canteen the next morning, sayin', "What's up Dr. S?" There was a chorus of greetings. He still hadn't gotten used to this – to people greeting him like he was just an established part of their world, and not one they feared or disliked.

Carol was cooking something up for brunch. "Smells good," he told her, trying to appear as though he wasn't thinking about that kiss they'd shared last night.

"Just so you know," she said, "I liked you first."

He didn't know how to respond to that, so he just said his expected line: "Stop." He glanced at her, eyes flitting up and down, realizing that even though she was joking, she wasn't  _only_ joking – she was telling him she sincerely did think highly of him. The thought flattered and embarrassed him. "You know, Rick brought in a lot of them, too."

"Not recently. Give the strangers sanctuary, keeping people fed…you're going to have to learn to live with the love."

"Right." He had to look away.

His eyes were drawn back when she said, "I need you to see something."

He took a final sample taste of the food she was preparing, but before they could get away, Patrick thanked him for the deer he'd brought back yesterday. The kid said he was honored to shake Daryl's hand.  _Honored_. Daryl pretended not to be surprised, licked his fingers clean, and shook the boy's hand. He strode casually away with Carol, feeling like he belonged here in this camp, like he was somebody special, maybe even someone who might dare to kiss Carol again one day. Not today. But  _one_  day.

Carol showed him the walkers pressing against the fence and told him they couldn't spare many people for the supply run. He was disappointed she wouldn't be joining him, but also a bit relieved, given that her presence would distract him with foreign feelings.

"Sorry, Pookie," she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

He chuckled and bumped her affectionately with his elbow, and she smiled. Only after he'd done it did he realize he'd been the one to touch her first.

As Daryl was packing up for the run later, he saw Zach trying to needle an affectionate goodbye out of Beth. "It's like a dang romance novel," he muttered, but secretly he smiled.

And the day just kept getting better. As he was leaving, Daryl saw Michonne had returned. He sputtered his motorcycle to a stop to tell her he was glad to see her back in one piece. Soon enough, he was headed off, the caravan of supply runners behind him.

As he roared down the road, he felt more content and more alive than he'd felt since…he couldn't remember when. This morning, he'd seen Beth turn over her little workplace sign to thirty days.  _Thirty days_  in a row they'd made it, without so much as a finger lost. Michonne was alive and well and - at least for now - back where she belonged. He'd kissed Carol last night, and it hadn't made things weird between them. They were still friends - maybe even better friends than they'd been before. Patrick was  _honored_  to shake his hand. He and the other supply runners were about to score some serious shit at the big place.

Life was good.

The future was bright.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we know this is when things started to go badly in the show. I am ending the story here on a happy note. There will be another in the series.


End file.
